The Line
by riversrunthroughme
Summary: When the mannerisms of a thief become those of a killer...there are lines you can and cannot cross. A story about high crime, intrigue and proving once and for all that some criminals just choose to play on a team all their own. ON HIATUS
1. Hazing

**Hazing**

_There's a line between good and evil…or at least that's what they say._

_But then that begs the question, who the hell are 'they'?_

_- Unknown_

_**-heist-**_

_Do it…just take it…it's right there in front of you…go on…you know you want to…_

_**Wait...not yet…just not quite yet…**_

Sweat slid down his skin, snaking its way up the nape of his neck and into his hair. It itched but ignoring his discomfort for the sake of freedom, fresh air and avoiding decapitation by the extremely dangerous security bot humming inches behind his head did not prove difficult for the young man in question. However, ignoring at insane, chanting little voice in his head did present something of a challenge.

He narrowed his eyes, fingers twitching, sweaty, almost aching as he hung there, suspending up side down from the thin, almost invisible black cord about his narrow waist. Some might have called him skinny; some might have called him athletic. In both cases, he didn't give a rip because his body – despite the mean myth that tall and skinny people have two left feet and fall over them frequently – could worm into the tiniest of ventilation shafts, twist through a complex and intricate maze of motion sensor lasers and best of all…

Weighed almost nothing.

Therefore, had the stamina to simply hang in wait above whatever prize he sought for hours on end. His profession revolved around patience, patience and timing. He knew this, but his baser instincts argued with him to toss his training out the window and just _blow the damn vault apart!_

"Rome wasn't built in a day," he muttered, tucking one of his many delicate tools back in the proper slot of his belt, careful not to touch the centre trigger mechanism.

The built in switch would activate the xinothium ore that fueled his oh-so-fashionable burglaring attire and as much as he loved to use the nifty little tricks the ingenious technology lent him, tonight it sadly became his back-up plan. The security bot couldn't pick up human body heat, but it would pick up the static energy produced by his suit. So…just doing things old school for tonight. As he slowly, carefully rewired the tiny battery powered locking devise preventing his entrance to the sizable vault before him, the young cat-burglar mulled over his life in recent events, figuring he had things pretty good so far.

He'd cased the place for weeks, memorized the building, the guard shifts, the security system. He'd hacked the construction company and stolen blueprints, even gone so far as finding a legitimate mole in the target's circle of dirty pals to tell him about the dangerous anti-theft defenses. He'd even deactivated the security bot's audio sensory system, so the idiot thing couldn't hear a thing he said, even as he hung behind it, humming to himself, leisurely disabling the alarm trigger built into the metal plated vault.

_Tricky little bugger, _he thought, busily rewiring, cutting through insulation rubber and wrapping copper strips around the proper circuits. He almost regretted the protective skull mask hiding his face. If he'd had it his way, he'd have taken it off to see his work with his bare eyes, a penlight between his teeth and an exact-o knife in his hands, the way he'd done things before the suit.

…before getting caught that one careless time. Before his rap sheet made him play things careful, forced him to wake up and smell the police doughnuts. Before he had to grow up and get real about his thieving career. Before the obsessive, too-intense, spiky-haired crime fighter, Robin the Boy Wonder and his merry band of do-gooder city mascots.

Blah…

He cringed, automatically making a face before the thought even fully formed in his head. He almost cut the wrong wire. Didn't. But he blamed Robin for the near-miss. He'd taken to blaming Robin for a lot of things actually, just about all his ill-fortune or back luck he blamed on the bird-boy…like a reflex or a comfort blanket. The way one might knock on wood to keep their words from coming back to bite them in the ass later.

After all…if he'd never met Robin…he would have never met Slade.

"Done!" X announced.

The mechanical lock gave a happy little cheep of invitation and the thief expertly keyed in the code he'd snitched out of his informant. The heavy vault door hissed and sprang open, well oiled hinges allowing the heavy doorway to swing out with nary a groan. X peered inside, still hanging like some kind of giant Black Widow spider from the ceiling. He examined the interior of the vault for any booby-traps he could have overlooked.

He remembered the tale of a pro burglar who aced every electronic security system in Europe, only to get caught in the Soviet when a job's last line of defense was a simple bell attached to his targeted prize. The noise alerted the watch dogs. The owner couldn't figure out why his prize Dobermans had no appetite the next day.

The thief knew, though he didn't admit, that the man he was currently in the process of ripping off would probably have something of the sort installed. From the rumors circulating the nightlife around Jump City, a new, dangerous kind of mafia guy had recently moved in on the territory Blood's defeat had left wide open. Since the last two major crime lords in the coastal city had gotten the bum's rush in a big way, this new guy had no problem slipping in and taking over.

With Brother Blood migrating to Steel City (as the rumor went) and Slade's death at the hands of Terra during the city-wide scare during the summer months (or so everyone thought) the ruthless and apparently crafty newbie on the block had no competition what so ever.

Well, in X's opinion that just wouldn't do. No man deserved to usurp a throne like Jump City's without some kind of hazing process. He'd gone through a bit of rough patch when he arrived and thought this guy needed to get knocked down a peg or three.

And…X frowned; spotting a thin, almost invisible line of fishing string crisscrossing the floor…he didn't necessarily like the word on the street orbiting him.

Apparently, first day he made an open move in the illegal markets, he snapped the necks of two well known weapons dealers, merely because they tried to haggle him too far over the price of their artillery. He then proceeded to tell the living underlings that their masters' rudeness offended his delicate sensibilities and he now demanded their loyalty and service to make up for it.

So in one swift stroke, this man had taken full control of the city's illegal smuggling operations and earned himself unofficial rule over every two-bit trouble-maker who needed weaponry to make their weekly assaults on the Teen Titans.

The name of this man, so Red X had gathered, was Blockbuster.

He couldn't decide if the guy was daring people to knock the name so he could crack a couple more necks, or if he had a legitimate reason for laying claim to such an absurd alias. Did he _want_ to get a reputation as the crime lord of overpriced movie rental outlets?

Red X silently unhooked himself from the grappling line, swinging himself into the safe; a good distance from the tell-tale wires hovering just above the floor. He crouched there a moment and inspected the thin strings, tracing their paths visually up the corners of the vault where they ran a subtle trail into several of the many safe boxes lining the wall.

The young burglar suspected any tightening or slack in the line would set something off somewhere.

He pondered momentarily how to over come the curious set-up, but didn't bother to get closer to his targeted safe-box by stepping over the obvious trip-wire. With a small, admiring kind of glance he noted the thin glint of a second, blackened trip-wire beyond the first, designed to catch the idiot who saw the first line and stepped over it.

He'd never seen a crime lord who used such ingenious, but medieval booby traps to catch his thieves. X mused, as he reached into his belt pockets, that this new crime lord just might have the ingenuity to make his mark in this town…

…until Robin kicked his ass anyway.

X stood up and carefully leaned over the wires to the appropriate safe box. A simple key would unlock the tiny compartment, but upon closer inspection he realized that the strings somehow coiled inside the tumblers of the lock. Any fooling about with lock-picking tools would certainly yank the string tight.

_He's smart_, X thought producing a small globule of simple wall tack and a pair of wire cutters. Whistling to himself, he pinched the line running into the locks between thumb and forefinger, then cut the line below it, preventing it from going slack or tight. He then gingerly applied the tack, placing it over the wire and adhering it against the wall, securely in place.

Seconds later he had the simple safe-box open and after shorting out a small tracer chip inside the long, air-tight carrying case, he slid the long, black case from the deep safe box and inspected it a moment. Opening it now would be a mistake. Blockbuster probably had a last, bitter-sweet surprise inside the tube to get the last laugh on the cocky burglar who _did_ manage to get his hands on the priceless object inside.

Grinning like a madman, the young criminal reached back and slipped his satchel from his back, sliding the plastic tube inside the black Velcro shoulder bag and strapping it place. He shouldered it again and stepped out of the vault, grabbing his tow-line and tapping a recoil switch. The spring loaded climbing ropes coiling up again, pulling X and his purloined masterpiece up to the ceiling and to safety.

His nerves tingling with the relief of finally stealing his obsession for the last couple weeks, the thief dangled there, unhooking himself and swung onto an adjacent support beam, catching it between strong fingers. He quickly began moving along the edge of the beam, swinging hand over hand from one beam to the next until securely outside the security grid.

He dropped to the floor and saluted the blacked out security cameras before tapping the centre of his belt. Xinothium buzzed across his skin like a layer of static before his body fluttered out of perception, moving so fast he seemed to vanish to the human eye.

In the morning, Blockbuster would find his safe wide open, his security bot active and sitting right in front of the violated vault and the priceless Italian oil painting _Una Notte Scura _missing from his recently acquired collection. Poor sucker. He'd never know what hit him.

Unfortunately, for Red X he might have considered that perhaps _he_ didn't know what he'd just hit…

_**-heist-**_

**((3:47 AM/Bandit13 has logged on/Bandit13 has entered Alleycat Corner))**

**((3:47 AM/CircusRunaway has entered Alleycat Corner))**

**((3:47AM/Bandit13 invites CircusRunaway to join private chat))**

**((3:48AM/CircusRunaway has accepted invitation to join private chat))**

**((Buffering))**

Bandit13: Up late again?

CircusRunaway: Up early, actually.

Bandit13: Picky, picky…

CircusRunaway: I notice _you're_ always on this time of night. You can't lecture me.

Bandit13: Yes, but you're always on before me lately. You don't talk to anyone else either. Do I have a fan?

CircusRunaway: Don't flatter yourself. I tried talking to the others on here, but they're all crazy and half of them are felons you know.

Bandit13: Yes I know.

CircusRunaway: Why do you talk to them? They all seem familiar with you.

Bandit13: I'm just a likeable kinda guy.

CircusRunaway: With a rap-sheet?

Bandit13: Bite me, Runaway. I'm not confessing to anything

Circus Runaway: …

Bandit13: Are you giving me the _silent treatment_?

CircusRunaway: …

Bandit13: Yes. I'm a criminal. Will you stop filling the screen with little dots now?

CircusRunaway: Now was that so hard?

Bandit13: You have no idea.

CircusRunaway: Why? Is it hard breaking the law? Doing whatever you want? Using and abusing other people for your own gain?

Bandit13: See! I knew you'd get all righteous on me! You always do! You're wound so tight I'm freaked you might blow up or something.

CircusRunaway: Ka-boom…That doesn't make what you're doing alright.

Bandit13: Hey! Don't come off like that. You don't know who I am or why I do what I do! Maybe the justice system isn't as great as you think.

CircusRunaway: Just because one cop hurt you or something, doesn't give you the right to break the law!

Bandit13: Just because one criminal hurt _you,_ doesn't give you the right to lump us all together! Take a chill pill, man.

CircusRunaway: …

Bandit13: …what?

CircusRunaway: How long have I been talking with you like this? Almost four months now right? Since my insomnia set in.

Bandit13: Yeah. What's that got to do with anything?

CircusRunaway: My parents are dead, Bandit. Say what you like. You can't change my mind.

Bandit13: …how?

CircusRunaway: Murder. What else do you need to know?

Bandit13: I'm sorry.

CircusRunaway: So am I.

Bandit13: Would you believe me if I swore I've never hurt anyone doing what I do?

CircusRunaway: Trust is easy to tear apart, hard to build up.

Bandit13: …I understand.

CircusRunaway: Night.

Bandit13: Runaway?

CircusRunaway: Yeah?

Bandit13: …I know it's hard and all that shit but…try to lighten up anyway. It's healthy. Trust me.

CircusRunaway: The optimist fall off a 10 story building and says for the first 9 stories down "So good so far."

Bandit13: The pessimist jumps off a bridge before life can hand him anything good.

CircusRunaway: Night, Bandit.

Bandit13: Night.

**((4:03AM/CircusRunaway has logged off))**

**((4:03AM/Bandit13 has logged off))**

_**-heist-**_

**Author's Note: **Yes. I've finally started my sequel to _Your Problem_. Sorry to all you Aqualad fans out there, but I have an entire side-story to explain what happened to him premiering right after the completion of this fic. Thisis dedicated wholly to Red X and Robin, though you know how much I adore Red so... Anyway, love to be back in the Teen Titan cesspool! Love you hear yourfeedback!


	2. Beautiful Stone

**Beautiful Stone**

"Do you think I'm crazy?"

She didn't reply. Red X sighed and stretched his arms over head, the lines of his stomach going taunt as he bent over backwards, arching his back. He straightened, swinging his arms at his sides like pinwheels and meandering back toward his silent companion. Sometimes, Red X fancied himself a lot like a cat (much to his dismay, seeing how he'd promised himself he'd not be like Selina) and sighed as he sprawled out at the feet of his quiet female colleague.

She didn't bother to look at him as he spoke and she didn't bother to answer.

Red hadn't expected her to and that, he thought, made their relationship so much more natural. He stared up at the cracked ceiling overhead, where the pale evening light cast a dim strip of moon glow across the smooth gray skin of the girl standing over him. Her long, once silky blond hair had acquired a dull, granite color since her time with the Titans, her pale peachy skin gone cold and mineral. When he didn't talk he sometimes stared, the slightly unwilling captive of her sad tableau.

Her face had a beautiful shape, a kind of face that could have once been innocent if life hadn't ground it into the dirt and sullied the purity. She still had a pretty face, despite the anguished expression as she stood, feet apart, arms spread to the ceiling of her stony cave in a final plea of some kind. The halo of hair about her head had gone rigid and cold like everything else about her, frozen in time carried by wind that no longer blew.

Terra.

The Teen Titan.

The traitor.

The friend.

He gazed up at her from the rock platform that she stood on, his hands knitted behind his head, tattered black cape keeping the cold of the underground grotto off his back. He swung his leg idly, heel tapping the side of the rocky dais as he considered her. He remembered from a time before when she'd gripped Jump City in her gloved fist and throttled the hope from it. He remembered watching her from the shadows, the slightly unwilling captive, alone in a deserted city, watching the dreaded apprentice patrol the dead highway for survivors.

He survived, but he didn't run. He never ran. He just watched. Red X wondered if Slade had know about him even then, laughed at him while he flitted in the shadows, silently fascinated by the sheer power of a single skinny girl. He'd wondered what kind master she answered to, not knowing then the identity of Slade back then. He'd wondered what kind of girl could crush a city, turn on her friends and still…just keep going.

"Maybe that's why I'm talking to you know," he speculated aloud. "Do yu' think? Maybe, I'm hoping that you understand what it's like to be on the other side of the law. I'm not sure what kind of person you really were…but I'm betting you were strong. Strong before Slade broke you. He breaks everyone…"

He stared up at her.

"I guess we got him back in the end."

_Maybe, _she seemed to say. _But I'm still stone and you're still afraid to sleep without a weapon under your pillow. _

Red X smiled and closed his eyes, picturing that she had said it and nodding. In his mind her hair fell freely about her shoulders, vibrant and pale gold like a little girl's first real caret necklace. Her eyes had no desperation and no limestone grit, but big laughing blue pools of life and independence. She sat here on her platform and greeted him with a grin when he arrived. She didn't see a thief, she just saw another teenager.

"I did a dangerous thing," he confessed. "I robbed a criminal mastermind."

He reached over the edge of the elevated stone and picked up the dark plastic tube, holding it up for her inspection.

"I went home and opened it up. It's a real deal piece of history. Pinnacle of oil painting," he told her informatively, turning his head to look at her from the floor. "A friend of mine tells me what I'm doing is wrong. But does it count when you steal what's already stolen?"

He uncapped the case and slid the precious canvas out into his gloved hands, a whisper of fabric against the material. With a touch so soft, it would have preserved spider silk, the young cat-burglar unrolled the brilliant Italian masterpiece. As he gazed mutely at the beautiful artwork, he wondered for another uncounted time '_Why do I take these things? What am I doing?'_

He sighed and rolled it up, turning to look up at Terra again. "What am I doing, Terra?"

Her silence sounded like a shrug and he sighed, flinging an arm across his eyes and simply existed there, laying at Terra's feet with no particular thought running through his brain. He felt bizarrely safe, dangerously comfortable. He let his thoughts drift, floating away to nothing, wandering aimlessly. He didn't want to think about what the new and dangerous crime lord might do if he figured out who took the painting. He didn't really want to think about running from Robin – who would be on the prowl no doubt – when he went home tonight.

He just wanted…to think about the hum. The buzz, the rush as he maneuvered through a maze of lasers, skirted motion sensors, hacked security and ghosted straight through the security of Jump's current, most diabolical criminal mastermind. He wanted to feel the cool sensation of the metal at his finger tips, the tick of the tumblers as they fell into place. You couldn't get any closer to immortality then that first look as he gently unrolled _Una Notte Scura_ and took in the fine brushstroke, genuine smell of ancient oil paints and rustic canvas.

He smiled; a totally contented cat-in-the-cream-with-a-mouse-on-the-side kind of smile and swore to God he'd purr if he could.

He closed his eyes and brought a hand to his masked face, hopeless and amused by it. "Why can't stealing be legal?" he laughed, speaking to his only confidant…well except Shi-Shi, but that cat had ego problems.

She didn't bother to look at him and didn't bother to answer and he liked it when she gave him the cold shoulder. He could imagine that she'd just grinned and waved him off, silently dismissed the estranged cat-burglar. She'd had enough of his weirdness for one night. The crazy, scrambled thoughts that he scribbled out in words across his tongue, in some vain hope that they'd start to make sense once put into a conversation.

_Go home, Red X. Go home and be Bannon for a while_.

He carefully put the painting back in the case and into the satchel. With a liquid shift of weight he slithered off the platform and slung the priceless treasure across his narrow back, gazing up at the statue girl. He imagined, in that cunning, selfish, totally un-hinged, cat-fearing brain of his, that this stone girl would someday come alive and tell him to go home one night with her real voice. But for tonight…

He crawled up onto the platform beside the girl and gazed up at the ceiling with her a moment, searching the stars through the crevasse overhead for some saving grace for both of them. He looked at Terra. Then at the sky. Then Terra again.

"Good night, dirt-girl," he said, almost fondly.

Then he flickered out of existence and into the night.

-heist-

"So he's very clever, this little thief."

Killer Moth didn't really know what to make of this man, this dark, cruel and terrible man. His many faceted insectoid eyeballs flickering across the dimly lit computer screen before him, the low-watt glow barely reflecting in his giant ocular orbs. He'd heard from his daughter's boyfriend, Fang, that the new and ruthless crime lord speaking to him had literally popped out of nowhere and laid waste to all those who dared oppose him…and then a couple more just to cement the message.

"Yes. I'm not sure what his real name is. The cops call him Phantom because he comes and goes like a ghost, moving through solid walls, or so goes the urban legends," sneered the moth-man.

From the opposite line the criminal – Blockbuster wasn't it? – shifted, a shadowy hand moving to cup a chin he couldn't see through the dark video-feed. The former bug-scientist shifted nervously, his mandibles clicking anxiously as his shady companion mulled over the information, as if somehow digesting it and tasting the flavor of his words for truth and value. His antenna trembled slightly.

Killer Moth did not want to give this man bad information.

"Phantom. He goes by another name doesn't he?" inquired the low, reverberating voice, cavernous and deep.

The shadow on the other end of the lap-top screen looked large. He'd purposely darkened whatever room he transmitted from and the feed had terrible visual. However, the audio projection came across the speakers like the man sat only yards away, dangerous and very, frighteningly real. He shifted, crossing a long leg over his knee and knitting his hands together in the darkness. He peered at Moth through the computer with the rapt attention a cat pays a canary.

"Umm…yeah. I've heard a couple dealers call him X," Moth fumbled, wringing his memory for any idle conversations he'd directed toward the men who fenced his money and lab-equipment.

"Just 'X'?" He didn't sound pleased.

"Red X," he corrected quickly. "Sorry." Moth hated to sound weak, but he also didn't want his wings ripped off.

He man sat back in his seat, seeming pleased. "Red X," he repeated, tasting it. "Tell me more about him. How long has he run in Jump City? New? Veteran? Had much contact with the Titans?"

"Well, if you want to know about Red X I'm the wrong guy to ask," Killer Moth admitted, more than happy to siphon this man's terrible attentions to someone else. "But I know the guy who does. A book-keeper named Peterson, covers for the smuggling at the city docking and marina. He's always going on about some young upstart thief who constantly drops by and harasses him for information, makes fun of him, ridicules him and such."

Blockbuster thought.

"Then he's a younger thief?"

Killer Moth shrugged. "Peterson calls him a brat, but Peterson's no blushing schoolgirl himself."

"Thank you. You've been more then helpful to me."

The screen blacked out and for the first time in months, Killer Moth wanted nothing more than to run upstairs and hug his sweet little girl close. Kitten would probably think he'd had some kind of break through with his new man-eating earthworms, but in fact, the mad scientist just needed to know that he had at least one reason not the abandon Jump City and all the dark and monstrous things that lurked its streets.

I mean, a killer moth can only take so much weirdness.

-heist-

**Author's Note: **Yes, it's moving along. Not much more to remark upon save that I hope you people are as strange as me. More Red X goodness to come...as long as my brain cooperates with me anyway. Feedback is appreciated. Thank you!


	3. Enemies Closer

**Enemies Closer**

"REOW!"

"YAAAH! Get it off! Get it off me, man! Get this thing off me!"

A tussled copper head emerged from the dissected innards of an ancient Mustang, facial features obscured by the narrow reflective glass of a heavy black welding mask. The young man in question blinked. Flicking off his welding torch and, placing the instrument on his handy rolling toolbox, freed his oil stained hands so he could yank up the battered mask and stare at the strange drama playing out at the opposite side of his garage.

"Dammit, Shi," mumbled the teenager, vanishing back into the mess of engine parts and reemerging from the underside of the vehicle.

Through the disorganized landfill of robotic knick-knacks, tangled jumper cables, battered car engines, automobile parts and all other manner of mechanical devises... a customer had just made the mistake of trying to pet his newest companion, Shi-Shi. In retaliation, his little friend had unsheathed needle-like claws and latched himself to the head of the hapless consumer, tail frizzing out, hissing madly whilst his victim ran in frantic zigzags, trying to escape the rabid feline fiend.

Unfortunately for Shi-Shi, however, the current victim had a metal plate of cybernetic material welded into over half of his skull, thus reducing the cat's options of leverage. Soon, the screaming young man had dislodged the cat who yowled furiously as he went air born. But by the time this occurred, the disheveled young mechanic and owner of the evil cat had crossed the floor and arrived just in time to catch his pet as he plummeted from the ceiling.

The ebony kitty landed in the redhead's filthy arms and immediately meowed in protest to the grime. Eyes the color of apple cider and cinnamon rolled in aggravation and he threw the finicky feline to the floor.

"Well, then don't attack my best customer you stupid thing," he snapped.

Shi-Shi flicked his tail at the red haired teenager, looking terribly offended by his owner and slunk away to wash himself for a couple hours time. Grumbling, the young man turned back to his client, rubbing his neck awkwardly.

"Sorry about that Cyborg. A friend of mine is having me baby sit the fur-ball."

The Titan straightened up, massaging his head and examining the claw marks left by the persnickety cat. The giant half-robot teen stood over seven feet, great barrel chest and armor plating taking up almost the entire front desk area. Not that the front desk had much room to begin with since the owner of the little fix-it shop had remembered to stick one in at the last moment only _after_ he'd piled all his precious workshop supplies into the building. You could just tell he liked cars better than people by looking at the run down stockpile.

Two eyes, one natural dark blue and the other cybernetic red, turned on the sweating mechanic before narrowing very slightly. "Yea? Mind telling me what kind of psycho keeps a cat like that?" he demanded frostily.

"The kind I know?" he provided with a crooked grin.

Cyborg grinned back and propped his giant arm against the battered countertop. "So how'z business these days, Ban?"

The young mechanic, Ban, shrugged his wiry shoulders, his too-large work tank threatening to slide off his arms. The summer heat had driven him to knot his over-sized mechanic's overalls about his waist and work with a large, choking fan in his only window, the whirling blades broken and slowly giving up life as it struggled to vent moving air into the mechanic's garage. Ban eyed the dying machine as it sputtered again.

"Oh you know," he replied, distracted. "Same old, just a bit hotter these days. What brings you away from the crime fighting scene and halfway across town to talk to me?"

"Parts. The new paneling the ordered for the T-car? Remember?"

Ban stared blankly up at the dark-skinned Titan, as if they spoke two difference languages before remembering the order in question. Ban immediately snapped his fingers and grinned. "Oh yeah! That one! They came in a couple weeks back and I totally forgot. Here."

The redhead ducked behind the counter and started rooting around beneath the decrepit table in search of the paneling. Cyborg leaned over to watch the slightly eccentric young mechanic. Cyborg had discovered his little shop about half a year earlier during a patrol one night and stopped in to see. At first he figured 'Ban's Place' was just another two-bit grease-monkey joint trying to be macho because the owner could take a car apart. But the moment he first saw Ban Mallory, half submerged in the engine of almost two different cars, he realized he might have found something genuinely extraordinary in the spiky-haired teenager.

He quickly came to realize Ban had some serious skill with any and all things mechanical, would have probably been happier as a half robotic android than a human. Cyborg liked the boy immediately, one because they both shared the age seventeen, two, because Ban had the rare talent of actually understanding half the mechanic jargon he tended to launch into.

Only problem with Ban seemed to be that the teen's love of all this metal and inanimate stole his life away from other sentient human beings. Visiting Ban's Place every other week or so, Cyborg had slowly found out that the young man rarely even left his two story studio apartment and probably slept in his workroom instead of his bedroom. Happier with machines than man, it seemed, but Cy planned to change that one day.

Ban finally stood up, a large cardboard box in his arms, grinning like Christmas had come early.

"You're gonna love this. I talked to a guy in Mech Town and he knew a guy in Metro City and _he_ knew another guy who knew another guy who designs stuff for the Justice League and this is the latest of his designs."

Cyborg's eyes lit up like a Vegas road-sign and Ban raked his spiky copper bangs out of his face, unwittingly smearing oil into his hair. He seemed as pleased as Cyborg.

"You won't have to buff out dents because anything that can scratch this baby probably has world destroying potential and you should be stopping it anyway."

"Ban, you are the absolute!" the Titan sang, delicately picking up the pearly, polished, state-of-the-art side paneling from the box and looking like he might burst into tears at the sight of such beauty. "I don't know how I used to live with out you. This'll look great on my baby. I have to take a road trip to Steel City this week so it'll be perfect!"

"I'd better see you tailgating some runaway cars," the mechanic said wickedly.

Cy grinned, putting his new toy away with all the care a father might bed a child.

"Then you should'a been there last week! Man it was awesome! So we're all cruisin' Main with th' music blastin' and lookin' fer a good place to get some grub," Cyborg began, launching into an excitable heroics story, gesturing wildly with his arms and getting psyched. "And suddenly – outta nowhere – this dude this tricked out hover car bursts outta Soto labs and, wouldn't yu' know it, it's some fire-throwing meta-human from Dakota. Anyway, we get onto the highway and this guy is swervin' traffick like a madman so I open up my baby and start runnin' him down."

Ban grinned, leaning against the counter and listening to the Titan go on about the boosters, the custom point job, and how he totally annihilated this guy and sent him packing all on his own.

Shi-Shi returned to purr and beg for attention, pawing the redhead's leg and mewing plaintively. Ban ignored the cat however, mentally recording this conversation as Cy began talking about the repair jobs inside Titan Tower and all the new hidden features in the T-car and how Robin's designing something wicked for the R-cycle.

He almost felt guilty…but not _that_ guilty.

Never in a hundred million years would Cyborg, hero and Teen Titan extraordinaire, suspect the true identity of his red-haired mechanical acquaintance Ban Mallory. How could he? After all, a humble mechanic living in the slums of Jump didn't really fit the profile for one of the most wanted thieves in the country.

How could Ban Mallory possibly be Red X?

Forty-five minutes later, Cyborg said his good-byes and left, hopping his precious T-car and zooming away. Ban leaned against the counter thoughtfully Shi-Shi leaping up to coil about his shoulders and bat a stray wisp of unruly copper hair. He wondered if any of the Titans would ever get wise to him. Would Cy would ever sneak a look upstairs to find the penthouse apartment above his precious workshop, bought off stolen money, purloined art and other stolen goods?

He smiled and rubbed Shi-Shi behind the ears.

"Not even Cat Woman got this close to her enemy," he said.

But Shi-Shi mewed and hopped off his shoulders, silently telling Ban that perhaps he shouldn't undermine his tutor. After all, while he may currently have the best of Boy Wonder, Selina Kyle had evaded the Batman for a far longer. Ban sighed and returned to his work, soon forgetting everything but how great it felt to fix things.

-heist-

"Stake out tonight."

Beast Boy moaned and flipped over the back of the couch in despair, flopping like a sack of mashed potatoes on the carpet. "Du-ude! Not another stake out! This is like the _billionth_ one this week! Can't we just hangout and _sleep_ like normal people?" he wailed, yanking himself up so he could give the Titan leader his most piteous look possible.

The thin line of Robin's mouth didn't even twitch as his teammate complained; he just arched one brow very slightly and shook his head. Over the last couple weeks he'd gotten pretty good at that. The expressionless, merciless and generally undeniable 'no's' he kept slapping in BB's face week after week, I mean. Nothing personal against Beast Boy, but he happened to complain enough for all the other Titans combined. Therefore, the fact _he_ continuously got the patented Robin no-because-I-say-so glare meant nothing.

"Sorry Beast Boy. But since Christmas X has been on the move throughout Jump," said the ebon-haired teenager apologetically. He turned back to the main computer display; tapping in a key command and hitting enter. A large collage of very badly formatted blurs popped up on big screen, filling the monitor with the hodge-podge of smudged gothic colored figures. The distorted skull mask and tattered black outfit making the felon look more like a Halloween figment than a burglar.

Beast Boy snorted. "Why is it every time we see pictures of this guy, they get more and more sucky?"

"Because he's getting better at what he does," said the somber, but oddly elegant voice of Raven. Her wide, mauve colored eyes opened as she reached up to throw her cloak over her slender shoulders. Her delicate artisan hands tossed the heavy garment aside as the teammate standing to her left sighed openly in annoyance, obviously a fan of his sleep.

"Look man, I know how important it is that we get this guy, but you can't seriously expect to catch him like this," said the tall, imposing figure beside her. Cyborg's cybernetic eye glowed momentarily as he ran some kind of internal program and glanced at the read-outs across his arm. "I mean, he's just a thief right? You said it yourself, a common criminal. I'm gonna be shippin' out for Steel City tomorrow t' look for Blood. We should be gettin' sleep t' take care of our bigger problems, right?"

Robin looked grim. "He _is_ a big problem. Personal vendetta aside, he's getting out of hand."

"Dude," Beast Boy interjected. "When did we ever have a handle on this guy?"

"Well, we could always tie Starfire to a pole, wrapped in a bow," Raven said, tossing a thumb over her shoulder at the girl in question. "He seemed to like her an awful lot."

The pretty redhead girl from Tameran made a disgusted noise, verbally making known her opinion of the cat-burglar whereas the rest of the team silently fumed, brooded or leered individually. Starfire's brilliant green eyes traveled from picture to picture then finally landed on the back of Robin's neck, as if she would find the last and most fascinating photo printed at the base of his skull. No such luck, however, the girl didn't exactly yank her gaze off the nape of the boy's neck before carefully examining the gentle slope where his hair met skin.

Then she realized how long she'd been ogling at the back of their leader's head and slapped her gaze back on the Red X photos, trying to focus upon the human boy's words instead of odd parts of his anatomy.

"I tapped some of these from some museum security cameras," Robin explained. "X has been very active. So far he's piled on quite a stack of police files, aliases and even a private slot in the Most Wanted records. So far he's stolen over two-million dollars in art alone and several thousand in gem and artifact theft."

Cyborg had the grace to look stunned. "Whoa…"

Raven, seated in a casual lotus position upon the couch, leaned forward to squint at the mess of photos. She herself had seen most of these pictures already, being the only other Titan harboring a real interest in Red X's criminal movements, but some of them looked newer and more thoroughly cleaned up than most of the one's Robin had shown her previously. The lavender haired psychic leaned back in her seat and watched Robin with a new found suspicion.

When had he come across these new pics?

Starfire however, had no such qualms. She floated up to examine the largest photo with genuine interest, brow furrowing with intense focus as she studied the blurry image of the master thief.

"The X is clever, yes?" she asked, thinking aloud. "So why did he not flee from Jump City after these thefts? Is it not wise for a villain of his type to 'leave town' as you humans say?"

Cyborg looked pensive, frowning at the screen as he thought. "That's true. You'd think he'd go to South Site, or Metro City. Why does he spend all his time here, in Jump? Buy now, every security system in a hundred mile radius is beefed up because of his crime spree. He's too hot to keep pulling jobs in this town or any surrounding cities."

Raven's finger began to tap against her bicep; a sure sign that the distant look in her lavender eyes meant thoughts stringing themselves into a hypothesize. "So…he's obviously attracted to Jump for a reason. A private benefactor?"

Robin shook his head slowly. "No…can't be. I've tracked half the items he sells off. Once they leave his hands, I can find them. He's too careful for me to track past the thug he sells this stuff to." Here Boy Wonder scowled as if this little admittance irritated him. "He sells to anyone and everyone who can top his highest bidder. According to the underground, he's the single most illustrious thief in the business and Jump is one giant heist to him."

The caped teenager pounded his fist into his palm. "If we don't stop him…no one will!"

Starfire, all inspired and raring to go, pumped a fist excitedly. "Yes! We will track down the villainous X and bring him to -,"

Suddenly a piercing wail split the girl's encouraging words, alarm dyeing the room briefly crimson as the Titan Alert went off. Raven glided over, tapping one of the many controls across the main console. The Red X photos vanished as the computer tapped into the city's central security mainframe and the live feed from a local jeweler's store popped up. Three flustered looking burglars burst out the doors looking inept and stupid as they dashed for their getaway vehicle and Robin made a choked laughing noise.

"Did the police force go on strike or do they just dump _every_ two-bit crime on us?" Robin pondered aloud.

Raven shot the boy a warning look. "When you and I first met, you told me Jump could depend on us to take care of any and all criminal behavior." She pointed at the burglars who had his gun stuck in his pants as he tried to pull it on a civilian who scooted away undetected. "As stupid and petty as they are, they're threatening innocent people. If we don't show this time, they might doubt us when something _real_ happens. You know that."

Robin sighed and ran a hand through his hair. "You're right, Rae. I'm sorry. Titans, let's go!"

The team made a mad dash for the door, heroes filing out to save the day like they did every other day. However, today, Robin paused behind his teammates, to glance back at the screen where the array of Red X photos had reclaimed the entire screen for itself. He narrowed his eyes grimly, as if to say: next time. Then he spun on his heel and was gone.

-heist-

"What else can you tell me?"

Dr. Chang drummed his fingertips in thought, eyeing the giant man before him with both fear and…possibility.

Standing there in his dark trenched coat and wide-rimmed hat, looking like a scarecrow with muscles, the mad doctor knew without a doubt that as much 'good boy' blood ran in that _brat's_ veins, more 'bad boy' blood ran in this eight-foot monster. Pearly white teeth, too long and serrated for a human mouth, bared themselves beneath that hat, long ratty hair the color of old newspaper hanging past his broad shoulders. He didn't know how this obviously bad man had slipped passed security to speak with him, but he didn't mind. It meant someone out there thought he had use.

Marvelous.

"Red X…oh. I know that little bo-oy," chuckled the Oriental man, his reedy accent dragging out the last word. "He's a thief, but he's a bad thief because he broke the rules."

The bad man frowned. "The rules?"

"He helped…the Titans!" Chang hissed suddenly, clenching his gnarled fingers. "He helped the good little boy and his pretty friend get away and destroyed my laser! My precious laser…" He sniffled like a father over his deceased child, the red lens over his left eye glinting. He stopped abruptly and eyed the new comer with a strange, unbalanced light in his gaze, looking gaunt and emaciated in his giant white body suit. "He says he did it for the xinothium, but I know better. I know _better_. Hee hee! I know!"

"Know what, Dr. Chang?"

"I know he's a _bad_ little boy. I know, but he's a _good_ little boy too. He's bad, but he's good. He doesn't want to feel," he paused and leaned close to the bars of his cell door to whisper, "guilty."

"He's got a conscience. How quaint," the bad man said with a chuckle. "So then he worked against then with the Titans once before."

Chang smiled and leaned back in his cell, twiddling his thumbs idly. "Yes. He's a smart boy. A clever boy. Everyone says so, because he's so quick, so quiet and so bold, but I don't think so. Hee hee…he's afraid. Afraid. That's why he wouldn't let me disintegrate the Titans. Level their precious city. Because he felt bad. Bad little boy with a secret. Oh, ho, ho!"

"What secret?"

"Ah, ah, ah. No secrets until I'm out and about."

The man in the trench coat studied the scientist with a cool eye. He could see the madness born of genius and the power-complex gone hay-wire. His run-in with the Red X and the Titans had left the man obsessed, stewing constantly over the scenario and drawing these erratic conclusions. He couldn't be sure if this man's word could be trusted as far as his evaluation of the cat-burglar's motives.

"Hey!" a gruff, male voice butted in rudely.

Trench Coat jerked his head up, glaring at the speaker a couple cells down. A younger man, greasy black hair slicked back in a badass hairdo, dirty black sleeveless shirt that hugged a muscle bound biker-boy body. His unhealthy gray skin looked like it hadn't seen sun in a couple months, his red-rimmed gray eyes beady as he leaned his face through a gap in the bars. He looped his wiry arms through the iron poles, waving to make sure he had the giant man's attention.

"You want to know about Red X?" he growled. "Go see old man Peterson."

"Peterson? The bookie at the docks?" said the man, intrigued.

The young man narrowed his eyes. "Are you bustin' Chang out? I heard someone in Steel City wants his help with some shit."

"What's your name, boy?" asked the bad man in the trench coat.

"Johnny. Johnny Rancid," he glowered. "Why?"

"I'd like you to make some trouble for the Titans tonight while I escort the good doctor out of here," the giant man said pleasantly. "Steel City is such a long ways out and I'm afraid time is of the essence."

Rancid bared his crooked yellow teeth, cracking his knuckles in anticipation. "Oh…I can do that for yu'."

-heist-

**Author's Note:** Ahh! The plot begins to unfold...kinda. I managed to plan this one out a bit more than my last fic, but hey, there's still time to crash and burn in every fic! Tootles!


	4. Duped

**Duped **

Robin drummed his fingers along the cool table top, pads of his fingers tapping softly in the silence of the Tower. He'd turned off all the lights and activated the nighttime security, so no one had reason to come down and disturb him other than for the sake of disturbing him. The dimly lit main room cast contorted shadows across the far wall; the dull, electric glow of the computer console casting pale light across Robin's pallid features. The multi-camera views in front of him divided the main display into several vigils of Jump's empty streets.

His fingers rose and fell more heavily in agitation. He keyed in a one-handed command and several windows leapt up, streams of information cascading down the face of the display. The teen's masked eyes darted, skimming the words and drinking them in, searching for an MO, a pattern, a new lead, hint or clue that he had not already exhausted the night previous. The dancing letters making up over a hundred recently reported burglaries, police tip-offs, and new faces emerging in Jump's criminal underbelly.

Why? Why was this so difficult?

He'd tracked much bigger game than a thief before. Much more dangerous and evil criminals in his vigilante career so why didn't this come easily to him? Why did all his leads go cold? How did Red X function in a city so hot? Robin knew by frequenting the scandalous night-life that several unsavory groups, all territorial by nature, wanted X dead or gone. Dead preferably. He sold to all the biggest, illicit collectors and buyers and yet no one knew his real voice, his real name, his real face and most of them didn't even know why he called himself Red X, having not even seen him in work uniform.

So how the hell did he do it? He knew obtaining and maintaining that kind of mystique cost more than a couple brain cells to pull off and plenty of shrewd felon know-how. As much as Robin hated (with a terrible loathing) to admit it, Red X had him (temporarily) at his wits end and what's worse, his team didn't seem overly concerned about it.

Now, Robin knew his natural drive to 'win' gave him more focus and more dedication – some would call it obsession – with his chosen objective. Knowing this, he didn't want to ruin the newly established sense of trust he'd accumulated between himself and the other Titans. The things he'd said both with Slade alive and later dead had seriously shaken his friends' trust in him, if not their confidence in his judgment. He didn't want them worried needlessly over his vendetta against Red X. He knew where his responsibilities lay, but being bound to them sometimes frustrated the Boy Wonder.

They didn't seem to understand how important it was to bring X down. Not for the city and not for him.

Now Robin, being a good and upstanding kind of guy, knew that just because X reminded him of his past weakness didn't give him the right to get angry with his team. Just because they didn't view his personal turmoil as a valid reason to go gallivanting off into dark allies every night in search of remote leads to a guy who'd all but proved himself a thief, but a thief who refrained from the unneeded violence, didn't sound like a very heroic thing to do. Heck, if Robin had been any other Titan but himself, he'd think the same thing.

Chasing Red X wasted too much time and effort and simply to save a couple fat-cats their money while they could focus their attentions on real psychopaths like Blood, Johnny Rancid and the like.

Speaking of psycho, Rancid busted out of jail and blasted a couple hundred thousand dollars worth in automobile damage running through the underground parking lots yesterday, flattening cars with his motorcycle. With Cyborg already on his way to Steel City Rancid's escape had made it a particularly irritating time for the four remaining Titans. Not to mention Dr. Chang had vanished from his cell the very same night. They had their hands full now and Robin's personal turmoil was a lousy reason to blow time hunting Red X

But nevertheless, the fact that they _didn't_ view his personal turmoil as a good and valid reason kind of hurt…

His gaze flitted across the keyboard, eyes following the familiar pattern of keys that would unlock _that_ site. He bit his lip. No. He didn't need to. Not tonight, besides, he'd said rain check. The teenager turned away from the screen momentarily and suddenly found himself craving a midnight snack…literally. The clock read 12:05. He pushed back, his chair rolling away from the desk. He bounced up and meandered toward the fridge, opening the door and allowing the pale light of the inside light to brighten the room.

Several unpleasant, blue, fuzzy somethings squirmed and Robin snagged the box of Chinese takeout before the suspicious blue life forms could contaminate it. He kicked the fridge door shut with a light tap of his heel and leaned against the counter, looking at the main display from the kitchen. He ate as he thought, contemplating.

A thief…a real thief. Robin had pretended once, been forced to steal once, but pretending and obeying didn't give you the same sensation as stealing for real. What would drive someone like X? Simple greed didn't seem quite right anymore. No. If he just wanted money he could take his skill where the payoffs came more often and at a higher price tag, but he stayed in Jump City. Why?

'_I just want to be number one.'_

Robin's eyes narrowed. "Are you calling us out?" he murmured softly. _Are you calling **me** out_, he added silently, privately.

"You'd think robins would keep better night hours than bats," a droll voice remarked.

The masked Titan turned sharply as a dark figure seemed to materialize from the side door, yawning mildly as she did. The pale but well featured face of Raven glowed slightly in the dim lighting, casting her lavender eyes into shadow and making her soft lilac hair shimmer. Apparently she'd awoken thinking not to run into anyone because she'd left her cloak in her room. The moonlight through the giant windows danced across her bare legs and tiny, unclad feet. Her gem belt had come off, her hair looked somewhat rumpled and bed-messy and without the cloak she looked particularly slender and delicate in the dim light.

Perhaps that same delicateness drove her to hide it under a heavy cloak?

"Hey Raven," Robin said with a grin. He placed the takeout on the counter and gestured she come and join him.

She obliged, gliding through the air, inches above the carpet and kitchen tile, sparing her feet the cold contact. She floated up to seat herself above the kitchen island, hovering in lotus position and looking demurely down at the spiky-haired boy. For her view, he figured that he must looked somewhat rumpled himself, having tossed and turned a few hours before coming out here to read police files and watch the monitors. He too had left his cape somewhere since he preferred not to suffocate himself with lightweight alloy-fabric in the middle of the night.

"So," she drawled, looking at the computer screens across the room. "Spending your midnights in a healthy manner I see?"

"I couldn't sleep," Robin said defensively.

"Clearly," she replied, summoning a glass from the nearest cupboard and telekinetically drawing herself a glass of water. Robin watched her with the mild fascination anyone lacking such powers did and tossed the empty takeout box in the trash.

"My head won't stop going even when I do," sighed the young leader mournfully. Raven sipped her water and seemed distant as usual…but strangely understanding in her own peculiar manner. Robin battled with himself whether or not to tell her his troubles with the Red X dilemma or choose to horde all his shortcomings and anxieties for himself as he'd come to do so often. Of all the Titans Raven, the most pensive and intellectual of the team, found Robin's words not entirely like a foreign language to her. Robin appreciated the translation skills.

She tilted her head. "Is it Red X again?"

Robin wondered if Raven's powers of empathy worked that well or if he just had the thief's name stamped across his forehead. Either way, relief stole over him that she'd brought the subject up first, but part of him knew that she probably knew that too.

"It's like I'm the one out there doing it."

"But you're not."

"Obviously, but my conscious likes to disagree." Robin looked downcast.

Raven traced her finger along the lip of the glass. "X really gets to you doesn't he? Even though he's just a thief."

"I feel like he's what he is because of me somehow. That I made more than just a suit for him to steal. It's like he's everything I can't stand all rolled up into a single felon," Robin fumed. "I've had trouble with criminals before, but that last one that gave me this much grief was…" He stopped, almost afraid to say, as if by doing so he'd break some taboo.

Raven didn't do taboo. "Slade?" she offered.

Robin had the grace to look uncomfortable. "Erm…yeah."

Raven sighed and floated down to the counter top where she unfolded her legs and set them down on the cold tile floor. She leaned over to place a hand on his shoulder, guiding his gaze back up to hers.

"You're not alone this time," she said firmly. "You have your team behind you and when they don't understand…you have…me." She paused as if rethinking her words and then repeated herself carefully, rewording her claim. "I want to catch Red X too. We're in on this together."

Robin nodded and smiled. "Right. Thanks Rae."

The girl yawned suddenly and stepped back. "But for tonight…" she glanced at the quiet screens. "I think X is doing the non-night owl thing and getting some shut eye, like you should think about doing sometime soon."

"Don't worry," the boy assured her. "I'll get to bed in a little while. I'm just not tired."

Raven nodded and glided into the darkness hallway, vanishing into the shadows. Robin turned to look up at the empty screens, frowning at the video feed. He couldn't believe how quiet the east side docking facilities had been for the past couple hours…hardly even any traffic save a couple Fed-Ex trucks and an old-school Volkswagen bug just about nobody used the streets tonight. The teen frowned at the screen and moved back across the room, standing behind the couch and gazing up at the screen for a long moment, feeling…strange.

Something…didn't seem right…

The image on the left flickered and Robin's eyes flitted to the motion so quickly he had to reorient himself. Suddenly a terrible hunch slammed him in the gut and the Titan leader vaulted the sofa, landing beside the computer console, fingers flying across the keyboard, putting in the command he wanted. The screen to the top left enlarged and the Boy Wonder rewound the tape, watching a tell-tale line of static buzz along the display. Stomach tying itself in knots, Robin rewound the feed for the night.

A Fed-Ex truck puttered up the street at six fifteen…then again at nine…and once more at midnight. The license plate was the same all three times. Robin slammed his fist into the counter in rage, shattering the second keyboard in three months.

-heist-

"So…Mr. Peterson. I've heard so much about you."

The greasy little man bowed a couple times, shaky, nervous, twitchy…like a rat or a weasel. His second-hand suit had an unpleasant suede brown color and a large piece of lint hung from his left sleeve. His tie had come loose and his comb over looked shiny in the buzzing dock light overhead. The docked fishing boats and luxury yachts, all covered with protective canvas or patched blue garage tarps depending on the wallet size of the owner. The single hovering orb of florescent glowing glass overhead cast into sharp reprieve the dark shadows under the man's eyes and the paunchy, shallow tint in his skin.

"You don't look healthy Mr. Peterson. Not at all," he remarked, amused by the frailness of this human roach.

The roach wrung his hands, watery eyes darting around like someone would dare to eavesdrop on _him_. The man in the jacket snorted to himself, glad this twitchy little man would not be around much longer. Peterson had obviously not slept for quite sometime, his smuggling business having grown more stressful than ever before with the previous smuggling lords dead. The rumors about a very powerful someone wanting to meet with him had eaten away at his peace of mind for quite some time it seemed.

"Well, you see, sir," began the bookie breathily. "This…this little brat of a thief keeps dropping by and harassing me for information about the new smuggling operations – I didn't tell him anything of course! – but he's quite the mean little thug. Always breaking in, stealing my files, ruining my good suits…"

_I can see that_, the man thought, eyeing the dollar-store blazer with disgust.

"Ruining your suits?" he inquired.

"He ahh…thinks it's funny to throw coffee in my lap."

"…he throws coffee at you?"

"Heh, heh…well not exactly." The man in the jacket frowned. So this roach liked to twist the truth. He'd have to be very direct to get anything worthwhile out of him. "He waits until I've filled my evening mug, then sneaks up on me and scares me," the bookie mumbled, turning a blotchy cherry red.

The man in the jacket tipped his head aside, as if fascinated. "So then he's a prankster is he?"

"Yes. Quite. Cruel little cretin. One time he went so far as to embed his nasty little ninja star things in my chair," whined the man.

"He threatened you with them? Did he injure you?" The dark criminal had grown genuinely interested now.

Peterson frowned though and shook his head. "No…no he didn't do that. He'd always threatened me, but never actually hurt me. He's too much of a coward to do that I think. He's never once killed a guard or injured the security personal while on the job. He's the only thief who can say that in Jump City."

He thought on that a moment. "Interesting…Any experience with the Titans? Quite a bit I hear."

"Heh, heh. Now that's a story though," Peterson cackled, rubbing his hands together like a man about to drop the biggest of all gossiping morsels. "Now, nobody knows who Red X is, or where he came from, but everyone knows that for some reason Robin _hates_ him. It's true! The Titan prowls around the city like a vulture by his lonesome, hunting X. They fight quite a lot, though that could be rumor since no one's actually seen them clearly.

"But the word on the street is that Robin's obsessed with catching X. Wants to nail him terribly," Peterson went on, feeling the rapt eyes of his audience hanging from his every word. The bookie didn't know why this man had such an interest in Red X, but he didn't really care. Anything to make life harder for that little upstart pick-pocket.

"Fascinating," said the new crime lord. "I hear he has a technologically enhanced battle suit. Is that true?"

"Yes. Stupid, ugly thing. Makes him look like a bad Halloween prop," leered Peterson. He fumbled around in his jacket and produced a glittering, crimson shuriken. Aerodynamically crafted, razor sharp, made of a light weight, high density alloy, the crime lord instantly had a new level of respect for this young rogue. Apparently, he had excellent taste in weaponry.

"May I see that?" he asked, voice carrying every fragment of his hungry curiosity.

Peterson stupidly bowed and handed the throwing blade to him. "Of course, sir. Now about Red X. Why so curious?"

"I'd like to repay him for an indecency," the man replied with a loving kind of smile as he thumbed the edge of the shuriken. "He's smart. He thinks he's smarter then me, but I'm going to prove him terribly, terribly wrong. Would you like to assist me, Peterson?"

The book-keeper's dreamy look of anticipation answered that question. "Oh yes! Finally!" The oily little criminal pumped his fist in victory. "Someone needs to crush that little bastard into the concrete. What can I do to help?"

The crime lord smiled. His fangs shone in the darkness as he lifted the deadly edge of the crimson projectile, savoring the look of blunt confusion on the little man's face. Then the gradual realization as he drew his arm back. The blood drained for his sallow skin and he began to blubber even before the crime lord answered. He licked out the single command like poisoned honey.

"Die."

Blood sprayed the docks like a fine mist of paint, coating the docked S. S. Lucifer in a new dripping color. The heavy thud of meat against rotting wood planks echoed dully, but not a soul did see the deed done. The murderer smiled to himself and turned on a heel, walking away, whistling to himself as he considered a fine Italian restaurant to which he'd like to pay a visit. But first…he slipped his cell phone out of his pocket and dialed 911.

"I'd like to report a murder," he said with a smile.

-heist-

Somewhere in the slums of Jump City, on the outskirts of town, in a rundown duplex, above a cluttered fix-it shop in a room that smelled of cinnamon, Bannon Sasaki woke with a start. He grabbed at something under his pillow and jack-knifed in his bed, throwing the sheets from his freezing body with a sucking gasp. His shaking fist gripped a long gray knife between white-knuckled fingers as he sat there alone in the darkness of his room, staring at the closed door opposite him and listening to his heart hammer against his ribcage.

Shi-Shi grumbled at him, mewing grumpily from the floor where the young man's sudden awakening had thrown him. The black cat's luminous eyes glowed green as he bounded up on the pillows beside the sweating teen. He blinked at his cat, great gold and cinnamon tinged eyes bright with a feverish urgency.

"Did I…" he mumbled. "I thought for sure…"

Shi-Shi eyed him with disapproval. In the corner of the room the newly framed _Una Notta Scura _glinted in the moonlight peeking in through the slats in the Japanese screens. The redhead lowered his blade, tossing it on the comforter and groaning. He closed his eyes and covered his face with his hands, the cold pads of his fingers tips sliding through the slick sweat soaking his pale face.

"Am I going crazy?" he asked Shi-Shi. He looked up between his long fingers at the cat, his voice muffled by the palm of his hand. "I swear…every night…I think he's here. Watching me. Grading me or something, you know?"

The cat glanced at the folded lap-top sitting on the counter. Bannon followed his gaze and blinked, wondering for the millionth time just how smart this feline really was. He swung his legs over the edge of the bed and onto the floor, ghosting across the room and flipping it open. A small, floating computer company icon rose up on the screen before he logged on the net and opened his e-mail.

He sighed, noting that Alleycat Corner had no one of interest on tonight and clicked up his buddy list. A small window appeared and he keyed in a quick note to his friend, CircusRunaway.

**_You say you have insomnia. How do you deal with that? I count sheep but as I start to go to sleep the little buggers turn into mutant demon lambs and try to disembowel me. Any soothing remedies for mum or you got a good priest I can call? Reply soon. Us crazies gotta stick together. _**

_**-Bandit13**_

He clicked 'send' and closed the computer, a strange sense of relief ebbing through his body. Something warm and furry rubbed against his bare ankle and he grinned down at Shi-Shi, the jet black animal purring playfully. He reached down to stroke the cat and walked back his bed, laying down across the heavy blankets and staring up at the ceiling. He couldn't shake these night terrors, couldn't get his internal clock to go back to sleeping at night anymore. Too many dark, terrible things lurked in the closets of his mind at night, in the dark, by himself where Slade threatened to lunge out of the shadows and…

_BREEP! BREEP! BREEP!_

Bannon seized his alarm clock and hurled it against the wall. It exploded and fell to pieces on the carpet. Before it did, he glimpsed the face that read 11:36 PM. Growling, he buried his face in a pillow and pretended to suffocate himself. Maybe if he tried hard enough he'd pass out and finally get some sleep.

-heist-

**Author's Note: **Ahh...nothing like a little murder to spice things up. Ho ho ho! I'm having a bit of a writer's block but I'm going to get you the next chapter quickly as I can because I feel the need for a bit of Red X and Robin action! BUH HAHA!


	5. Framed

**Framed**

Raven observed the scene with a detached kind of expression, the one she always wore in the face of the truly horrible. A bit more rigid than her typical 'I-am-the-untouchable-Raven' expression, but a not quite emotional enough for one to think it genuinely disturbed. She hovered a good yard above the rotten planking, examining the decrepit docks for some other clue besides the obviously dead body sprawled like a broken doll on the walkway. The cold black waves lapped against the moaning pier, voiceless, yet whispering of what they'd seen.

She glanced over her shoulder toward her teammates, concerned for them.

Starfire's emerald green orbs had grown overly bright with sick horror, her delicate Tameraian sense of justice going haywire at the sight of such mindless death and gore. Beast Boy, kind hearted, innocent kinda jokester he was, couldn't find anything funny to say in the face of this crime. He half-heartedly sniffed the area as a bloodhound, kept stopping, shaking his head and snuffling all over again.

He reverted to his elfin form, crouched at the edge of a slowly browning arc of blood and gazing at it with a morose kind of fascination. He'd never seen a murder scene like this before. The aftermath of a gang war, gunshot wounds and one guy with a missing ear, but they'd all died in a familiar fashion. Bullets kill. TV had desensitized him to that kind of suffering enough to stand it, but the sight of such…senseless…brutal…so much blood…

Raven touched his shoulder. Startled green eye bounced up to her, shocked out of his reverie. Soft mauve orbs gazed gently down at him and she motioned with her chin toward Starfire, who had a small crowd of night-shift dock workers trying to get a glimpse of the corpse. He nodded and moved to help the girl, grateful to get away from the metallic scent of death.

The empath hesitated…then looked toward Robin. She spotted him at the edge of the dock, standing just outside the police tape with his arms folded across his chest and a familiar, dark expression across his masked features. The red and blue sirens of the police vehicles cast his sharply attractive countenance into a kind of multi-colored shadow, his hair looking abnormally spiky in the weird lighting. A tall and heavy set man with a chin-full of eleven PM shadow and a large, navy-blue police jacket explained the situation to him.

The police had received an anonymous tip from the man too scared to stick around as an eye-witness. The message, however hastily conveyed, was that a man dressed in a black costume had appeared on the docks with the bookie. They spoke, they argued, Peterson never saw the blade until it ripped his jugular open.

"It's a mess," Commissioner Ryan Jones was saying. "Peterson kept all the booking around here. Maybe he saw something he shouldn't have or made a deal with the wrong guy. Our people took all the evidence photos into forensics but except for the murder weapon it's a clean kill." He sighed and ran his fingers through his obviously bed-rumpled hair.

"Do you have the weapon?" Robin asked tonelessly. Raven grimaced privately at the sound.

He held up a paper sack with a small white label attached. "It's weird. That's why my boys called you up. Figured maybe you know of a criminal who uses these. We'll tell you if anything else turns up."

Robin took the bag and stared at the badly dressed dead man, a sense of both pity for the man and disgust at the atrocity radiated from his aura, touching Raven's mind like a bitter medicine taste. He thanked the Commissioner and they shook hands before parting ways. Robin watched him a go a moment before walking over to join his teammates.

She glided over and landed next to Starfire and Beast Boy, who'd finally dispersed the crowd. Now that the police had cleaned up the body and shipped it off to the morgue, the people's gruesome interest waned. Starfire eyed they bag worriedly, obviously not looking forward to more gore this late at night. Beast Boy rubbed his nose like something stank.

"Sorry guys. I tried to catch a scent, but all I can smell is blood," he said miserably. "Dude. This is so messed up."

"I admit. We haven't seen this kind of murder for a long while," Raven agreed. "I hope this was a one time act of rage."

"I wish Cyborg were here," Starfire sighed. "He chose an inopportune time to leave for Steel City."

Robin glowered as he opened the bag and reached inside. He felt around and finally pulled large plastic bag out of the void. The lights from the police cars danced across the dark crimson angles of the blade. Recognition hit the Titans like a sledgehammer to the gut and every single one of them sucked a sharp breath.

"Dude…no way," Beast Boy breathed.

Glittering in Robin's hand was none other then a crisscross, red shuriken…a very familiar weapon to all the heroes. Robin's hand tightened over the shuriken and Raven felt a cold wave of self-loathing and hatred boil up in the teenager's aura. She shook her head slowly, the others missing her moment of disbelief. _It can't be_, she thought. _It couldn't be…**him**._

"Let's go guys," Robin said coldly. He folded the evidence into a small square around the murder weapon and tucked in into part of his belt. "Spread out. We're searching the area. Then the rest of the city. Starfire, go with Beast Boy. Raven…you come with me. No one gets caught on their own."

Starfire looked startled that the boy hadn't chosen to go with her, but didn't remark on it. "Robin? Are we to assume that -,"

"Yes. We assume," Robin cut in icily.

They all knew what he meant. Raven looked strangely distant as they all parted ways, Starfire and Beast Boy taking to the western end of the city, Raven and Robin to the east. As they spread out across the dark alleys of the lower cityscapes, moving deeper into the middle to lower class apartment complexes, the violet haired girl suddenly looked up at Robin as if to confirm something. _Slade kills people…I'm just selfish. _Isn't that what he'd said? She visualized the bloody shuriken as Robin stuffed it violently back in the bag. Had he lied?

"So…" she began.

Robin looked slightly ill as he gritted it out. "Red X…has become a murderer."

-heist-

_I love my life_, Red X thought dizzily.

The light overcast cleared away just a moment and the pure moonlight hit X like a searchlight, making his plain black of his tattered cape standout like an oil splash against the granite stones of the old church. Slung over his back, the fruits of his labor for the last couple hours rested against his shoulder blades. He'd just pawned off the _Una Notte Scura _to a very wealthy art collector in the Brazilian mafia (or so said his underling at the trade) and received a huge pay off. Now he had the thick stacks of cash securely strapped to his person.

The belt about his narrow waist hummed, cooling from the last use and going into power-save mode, a nifty little feature X had added in himself for late-night strolls like this. The thief sighed happily as the moon hid its face behind the clouds against, casting him into shadows once more and perched on the shoulders of a beefy stone gargoyle that jutted out over the street almost ten feet. He propped his elbow on the monster's horns and stared out across the glittering expanse of Jump City.

"Home sweet home," he remarked softly to himself.

"I'd like to know where you keep your welcome mat," said a familiar voice tersely.

X braced his arms against the gargoyle's neck and leaned back, tilting his head over his shoulder to stare over his back at the shadowy, athletic figure of Robin standing, arms folded, shoulder braced against a deep crevasse between two elegant stone rain-funnels. His familiar black and white eye-mask narrowed darkly, his spiky black hair and expression a dark contrast to the cheerful red, green and yellow of his uniform. The steel plating along the bottom of his boots made a mean grating sound when the vigilante kicked himself off the wall and stepped fully into the moonlight.

The thief smiled, swinging a leg over the side of the long stone ledge and leaning back comfortably against his stony pal. "Hey, there Rob. Haven't seen you for a couple months. Been busy?"

The thin line of Robin's mouth pulled into a crooked smirk. It looked sour. "Too busy for you, thief."

"You wound me," X chuckled darkly, voice rising and falling, distorted and unrecognizable. "And I thought we were buds."

Robin tensed about the shoulders suddenly as if those words slid nails along a chalkboard in his brain and Red X had to pull a very hasty backhand spring onto the statue's thankfully flat skull as one of Robin's bird-a-rangs bit a chunk out of the stone where the burglar's kidneys had been a couple seconds earlier. The intense Teen Titan planted a heavy boot out on the first block of the jutting stone gargoyle, flicking several high-density throwing disks between his long, gloved fingers.

"I'll wound you alright and we're not buds, _X_!" He spat the syllable like a bad taste. "You're going to jail for the murder of Charles Peterson!"

A long pause. Red X blinked, Robin glowered, the moon shone, traffic zoomed around beneath them and finally the accusation sank in on the burglar's end.

"Wait. Say _what_?"

"YAH!" Robin hurled the disks with prejudice.

Red X swore and dove off the end of the gargoyle just as the disks detonated against the stone, sending up a cloud of thick mortar dust and smoke. The thief snagged himself on a lower ledge, managing to catch himself on the lip of a long stone arch thrust out from the face of the cathedral tower. He swung himself up on the arch, straddling the narrow stone stretch and flicking the power-save mode off his suit. He flicked four explosive shuriken into his hand and hurled them up.

The Titan leader, having just dashed along the length of the busted looking gargoyle to peered down at the thief, hissed something and pitched himself off the stone too. X's throwing stars struck the abused statue and blew up in a rain of stone, flame and smoke. Robin plunged by the thief's perch, hurdling toward the unmerciful ground with gravity pulling him eagerly to the concrete demise.

But the Boy Wonder hadn't gotten that name by sitting on his butt and writing detailed criminal reports, he got the name by doing amazing things.

The teenager somehow, got himself flipped around in the air and snagged the horn of another statue as he fell by and using it to reverse his momentum managed to slingshot himself down and around and straight back up to the rain gutter, landing almost perfectly beside the burglar. Suffice to say, Robin himself looked a bit shocked at his genius so no one can blame X for just sitting there and staring up at the Titan standing next to him

"Whoa," he said.

"Yeah…" Robin agreed. Then he punched X in the side of the head.

The thief went with the force of the punch, wrapping his arms around the rain gutter, rolling with it. He pitched off the side of the narrow ledge, pin-wheeling his legs as he went over and his heel caught Robin in his jaw, knocking the teenager off the building. X hung dizzily from the bottom of the rain gutter, feet dangling over the open air between him and the sidewalk so far below. Robin had vanished, which meant the little pest would come back to nail him again so he'd best get up.

The felon swung his legs like a pendulum, gaining momentum and then tossing himself into open air. He free-fell, arms and legs eagle spread as he pitched forward into gravity's thrall. He heard the tell-tale burst and hiss of Robin's grappling hook and hit the centre notch of his belt. His body fluttered out of existence just as Robin's boots plowed through the newly vacated space.

Red landed with a heavy thud on the roof top two streets over, the long distance teleportation throwing off his aim and dumping the thief ten feet over his predestined target.

To his shock, the sound of someone's boots crashing into the brick behind him signaled Robin had managed to catch up with him somehow. The tell-tall clomp of boots and heavy breathing indicated Short Dark and Spiky hadn't given up chase yet and the thief began to wonder if Robin often suffered from stomach ulcers what with all the world not behaving the way his heroic head had in mind.

"X!" Robin snarled, far closer than comfortable for the thief. "You murderer! Get _back_ here!"

"I'm not a murderer!" Red X spat. "What's your damage? I didn't kill Peterson!"

Something hissed through the air with a sharp 'ziiiiii-zit' and a strong length of cords slung themselves around the burglar's ankles. He cursed and stumbled to the ground, hitting the stone hard and sliding across the rooftop until he smacked into an outside ventilation duct. He twisted around to see Robin's throwing ropes wrapped about his legs. The Titan himself skidded to a halt and made to seize the fallen thief, but X had other plans. He lashed his arm out like a striking snake, the high whine of the suit's rotary blades slicing the air, inches from Robin's chest.

The vigilante lunged back, but by the time he recovered, X had cut the bonds and taken off running again. Robin sprinted after him, irritated to see the thief had a perfect running stride. He'd have to slow the criminal down. Red X had the same idea however, because he spun around to face the Titan, looking like a trapped cat at the edge of the roof.

"I didn't kill anyone!" Red X snarled.

Robin stopped a good distance away, but still near enough to present a threat. "Tell that to Peterson's family!"

"I didn't kill anyone!" Red X sounded pissed off now…and if Robin didn't know better, confused. "Why are you _saying_ that? I thought you were supposed to be _smart_. If there's a murderer going around, it's not me!"

"Then explain why your weapon was found lodged in his throat," Robin spat. He reached back into his belt and threw a wadded paper bag at the thief. He caught it awkwardly, as if stunned by the accusation. He opened the bag and stared at the grisly contents. The narrow eye sockets of his masks grew wide.

Robin glowered. "Someone ran a loop through the city surveillance at the docks at the time of the killing. Only a rough half hour ago and you're out and about in that stolen suit. You're the only one who could have done it. I know plenty of people who can connect you to Peterson." Red X couldn't think of anything to say in the face of such a well designed accusation, just standing there with the stained shuriken in his hands.

"Guess you forgot it while you were running," Robin added.

"I wasn't running. I didn't kill him!" Red X hissed. He threw the bag back at the Titan. "Keep your damn evidence. It's a set-up. Someone's trying to frame me."

"Don't lie when you're caught," the teen hero said coldly. He whipped his bow staff from its sheath, snapping it into full length. "It's not very classy."

"I didn't do it!"

"I don't expect you to admit it."

Rage blinded the young thief like a thick haze and suddenly he couldn't even see straight. He couldn't explain it, couldn't control the rampant emotion and before he could reason himself out of it he whipped his arms straight. The motion activated the crimson crisscross blades that sprouted from the back of the burglar's hands. Robin charged the thief, but didn't shout a battle cry, silent as an assassin. Red X couldn't find words in his fury.

The two met at the middle, crashing together with a sharp metallic grinding of metal against metal. Robin's bow staff spat sparks against the criminal's wrist blades, their arms trembling with the conflicting forces of their bodies, each struggling to overpower the other and finding themselves evenly matched. Robin's boots ground loudly, skidding on the concrete roofing while X's soft soled shoes silently ghosted across the dusty stone.

The two leaned into their attacks, faces so close to one another they could hear the heavy panting from the other's lips. Robin's face had no trace of the smirking Teen Titan back at Chang's lair. None of the wry humor or amusement, just cold righteous fury. Red X, for a moment, felt a spark of dread in the face of such desire to simply hurt him…_a lot_. They spun, each anticipating the other, thief and vigilante, one trained, righteous and looking to end a criminal streak, the other wild, raw and hoping to keep his streak alive. Ice and fire? Maybe…maybe not.

Robin let loose a wild cry, spinning and whipping his staff in a deadly spinning circle, shoving Red X off his weapon.

Red ducked under the follow through attack and dodge-rolled to Robin's right, slashing up, aiming for the Titan's utility belt. It snagged part of the teenager's uniform, but X had to spring back like an agitated cat as Robin's angry roundhouse kick hissed by the young burglar's skull. He doubted that iron plating would be merciful to his cranium. He sprang up and the two arch-rivals began to circle each other with only the moon as their witness, staring with her pale face as they paced the roof. Moonlight shimmered along the crimson face of the rogue's twin blades, glinting from the length of Robin's bow-staff

"You've gone too far, X," Robin articulated. "I'm taking you in this time."

Red X scowled. "Wake up and smell the manipulation, Bird Boy. Someone wants me out of the picture and their using you to do it."

"Right. I've never heard that one."

"I'm telling the truth! I'll prove it!"

"How?" Robin leered.

_Good question, _Red X thought dimly.

Robin attacked him again, leaping into the air and swinging his staff overhead with all the force he could muster. X sucked a breath and spun out of the way, metal cracking against the stone before Robin used his staff as leverage and nailed Red in the back. The thief sprawled. He gasped, shoving himself into a sideways roll as Robin's staff bit the concrete beside his skull. X reacted so quickly it startled even him. He snatched the bow-staff before Robin could pull it back and yanked it toward himself. The move, in turn yanked a startled Robin right into his waiting boot.

"Oof!"

Robin staggered back, clutching his belly. He grimaced, wincing up at the burglar who struggled up as well, looking pained. Red X panted, breath coming in short bursts, adrenaline pumping through him like an injection. Sweat might have dripped from his skin if he hadn't had the mask. He could see the sheen against Robin's forehead, the way the Titan's chest heaved.

"If you won't believe me…" Red X sputtered. "Then…then...I'll find the killer myself!"

Robin looked pleasantly shocked. "What?"

"You heard me," X said, trying to sound smug whilst fighting to hide his own panic. What the hell was he doing? Was he serious? Find the killer? Him? The irony was almost laughable. Nevertheless, the thief thrust a finger at the startled Boy Wonder, having abandoned the rotary blades in favor of verbal combat. "I'm gonna find this bastard and bring him in myself. You Titans are a joke. I'll do this thing before any of you self-righteous morons get close!"

"You're not a hero!" Robin snarled.

"I'm not a murderer either!" Red X retorted. He spun around and leapt like a great black cat to the top of the rusted water tower on the roof.

"X! Stop!"

Robin raced over to the foot of the tower, bow-staff useless to him now that X had leapt out of range. The thief narrowed his eyes at the Titan below him. The fury and hatred he saw in the young hero's face made the burglar sick, knowing it all stemmed from the belief he'd done something so…so… _Slade_! The thief shuddered, both cold and hot with revulsion and he felt something bitter, like lead fill his mouth. _He refused to get **framed**!_

The villain saluted him inappropriately.

"Catch me if you can, Robin!"

Then he leapt off the water tower and buzzed out of existence.

-heist-

Red X, by the time he got home, couldn't hardly see straight anymore. He tried to figure out how he'd gotten so sloppy that some two-bit bastard with a grudge managed to slap together a crime-scene convincing enough to fool Boy Wonder. He then tried to solve the mystery of why his head ached so badly, even though he'd already taken his mask off. He decided that he blamed the ache on a punch to the head, which he blamed on Robin… and for Robin's actually managing to hit him he blamed on lack of sleep…which he blamed on Slade…for whom he blamed Robin…and there the entire cycle began again, getting him no where.

The thief rumpled his flaming red hair and threw both his belt and his mask and his nightly earnings at the far wall, letting them smack the stucco and slide to the carpet. He didn't even care anymore, all he could hear, see, or think about was those terrible words coming out of Robin's mouth again and again and again like a sour and broken tape record:

_You're under arrest for the murder of Charles Peterson_.

Suddenly the thief felt suffocated his skin too hot for his body. Giving into the sudden compulsion, the felon ripped off the gloves and hurled them at Shi-Shi, who hissed and darted away from his owner gone mad. The feline huddled under the sofa, watching with wide green eyes as the infamous Red X stripped off his illustrious thieving attire and with a mixture of rage and disgust threw the entire thing in a corner, becoming Bannon Sasaki in less than thirty seconds.

The teenager suddenly lost his zeal and dropped into the couch, shirtless, clenching his fists against his forehead momentarily. But unable to keep them still, he ran his long fingers through his unruly copper hair, golden cider eyes wide, almost feverish. Shi-Shi ventured out from beneath the sofa and made his way over to the obviously strung out young man.

"I didn't do it," he muttered obsessively. He dropped his hands into his lap and stared sightless at the far wall. "I didn't do it. Why does he think I did it?"

The young man suddenly growled in rage and grabbed his head again, like it hurt, or like everything swirling around in his skull threatened to burst out of his brain. Bannon shook his head to clear it unsuccessfully, trying to cope in his unstable, criminal mind the ethics of being a felon, but getting blamed for a terrible, terrible crime he did not do. Furthermore, he began to question, in that skewed head of his, when it came to be that he cared so much what the Titans thought…or the police for that matter.

"Because!" he snarled out loud, leaping up and messing up his hair again. "Because I didn't do it! I go to jail for things I do, not things other people did with my stuff! Damn it, Robin! I thought you were smart!"

But then again, since when had Robin become an expert of the behaviors of Red X?

At what point had Bannon Sasaki decided that in the field of catching Jump City's resident super thief, Boy Wonder had a college degree? The redhead thought about it a moment that lasted a second and realized that somewhere between the stealing, the running, the exchange of mocking cat and mouse dialogue, Robin and he – Red X that is – had come to identify with one another, however that worked around masks criminal laws.

So Robin, being the expert that he is, should have realized something was wrong right away. Shouldn't he have picked up on that? Thieves don't go first-degree on a dime after keeping a perfect record for over a year in their thieving career. Why bother to keep one's self out of that kind of trouble only to screw it up on a twerp like Peterson?

No! Not only had his nameless doppelganger ruined his rep and got the Titans on his ass, they'd done it poorly! They'd done a half-baked, sloppy, meaningless and totally unmotivated bloodbath and pegged his name on it. They'd hardly even exerted themselves to make him look like a killer. The one criminal act with no justifiable benefit whatsoever!

And what's worse…Robin was falling for it!

The Red X in Bannon couldn't decide which was worse. He stewed on everything, all the facts he knew and all the blank spots in his knowledge. His biggest questions echoed in his head: Who would frame him? And why? His blood boiled and in a sudden reaction of anger he only half controlled he seized the nearest lamp and threw it against the wall. It shattered, exploding into a thousand clay pieces, all the shards launching themselves randomly about the room.

Shi-Shi hissed and arched his back, black hair standing on end.

Bannon paused, hand still frozen in the after-motion of throwing the furniture piece. The feline mewed crossly and with a twitch of his tail trotted off toward the opposite side of the room, glancing back at the teenager like a moody parent, trying to teach his hot-headed son a lesson. The thief didn't bother to think maybe he should put more trust in his own thoughts then that of a cat, but instead got up and followed.

Shi-Shi paused next to the article of clothing Red X had thrown, pawing energetically at the skull-mask, spinning it gently on the floor. Bannon watched his pet a moment, glowering. Shi-Shi bounced around the mask and began to purr, knitting his claws into the carpet beside the xinothium belt and tail flicking about; giant green eyes closed in contentment.

"Are you trying to tell me something?" Bannon asked his cat wryly.

"Meow."

"Uh-huh." The thief glanced at the belt, studying it. Shi-Shi blinked expectantly up at him. He sighed. "If you say so."

He grabbed the upper half of his costume and yanked it over his head, followed by his gloves, his belt and finally the familiar crimson scarred skull mask. Shi-Shi mewed, catching his attention ad drawing his gaze to the tattered cape he'd tossed over a chair near the kitchen. He wondered whether or not to go with the garment, but decided against it, figuring if he ran into Robin a second time tonight, he couldn't afford a possible handhold flapping around behind him. The Boy Wonder had a pretty decent running stride when pissed off enough to use it.

-heist-

**Author's Note: **I hope that was enough action for all you junkies out there. I'm having a ball with this story. Just hope I can stay on this inspirational streak for a bit longer. See you next chapter! Ja!


	6. Solo Hero Thing

**Solo Hero Thing**

_Geez, I really suck at this whole solo hero thing._

Red X glared at the darkened alleyway below him, feeling both cheated and annoyed. Once he got over the shock of having murder charges floating around over his Wanted head, all that remained was a dull, throbbing sense of ironic irritation. He drummed his finger against the cold brick under his fingers, hunched at the edge of an old apartment building like a kind of animated gargoyle. The seconds ticked by like centuries and the longer he did nothing…the more strongly the sense that he _should _be doing something grew.

_Stake out_, he reminded himself with a growl. _I'm just waiting._

_**Well, make it happen faster!**_

_What! Damn it! This is not a drive through!_

_**Then go find someone! Why do we have to wait?**_

Red X stopped the conversation with himself right there because not only did he realize talking with one's self probably wasn't healthy, but the conversation hadn't been particularly inspired either. He punched himself in the head and forced himself to wait some more, resisting the urge to stare repeatedly at his watch because the constant intensity from his glare might shatter it and then he'd have one more thing to get pissed about on his List of Things to Get Pissed About.

A shady looking thug in an ugly gangster jacket forty sizes too large came around the corner, whistling to himself. Part of Red X nearly died, sobbing with relief that someone had finally shown up. The poor bad-guy never knew what hit him, except that his attacker weighed about as much as one fifty dropped from twenty feet up. The man (maybe twenty four to twenty-six) swore colorfully around a mouthful of alley garbage and mud, Red X seated comfortably between his shoulder blades.

"About time!" the young thief snarled. "What happened to Domikov? Why isn't he picking up his cell?"

The man looked stupidly up at him, eyes the size of dinner plates. Red X glared at him and seized him by the back of his beanie-cap, grinding his face into the dirt. Once the guy had enough of that, X waited patiently for his captive to realize talking to him might be more appealing then tasting last months TV dinner rejects mixed with rat droppings. Jump City's garbage retrieval people tended to miss this area for some reason.

The man spat dirt and made mean comment about Red X's mother before getting around to answer the thief's previous question.

"Domikov? Domikov?" the thug echoed incredulously through the grit. "That guy who ratted stuff on Blockbuster? He's dead, dawg! Blockbusta capped his ass and if you're who I think you are then he wants you dead too. Ha, ha!"

Red X bounced the man's face off the concrete, effectively shutting him up.

"Shid, dude! Dat's by dose!"

"At least you still have it so far, Pinocchio. Did Domikov tell Blockbuster about me?"

"Nah, Dom tol' 'im he radded info t' a thief. Buster figured _you_ 'imself," the abused gangster said stuffily.

Red X frowned behind his mask. "How?"

"I dunno…I 'eard he dalked t' Killer Moth, dough." The man stopped talking, going cross-eyed to stare at his red and swollen nose. Blood ran profusely over his lip and chin. "Ah, dude! You suck!"

But Red X had gone, already bounding up the side of a fire escape and darting up onto the roofs. He teleported a couple blocks over to land in the middle of Jump City's resident warehouse district. He fell awkwardly on a pile of crates, the xinothium tech not functioning as accurately with long range relocation. He managed to catch himself silently as possible, falling into a noiseless crouch and sat there, nursing his growing hatred for Blockbuster.

If that man (one of Blockbuster's less intelligent cronies) knew about the big man's grudge against him, then either the criminal had trouble keeping secrets…or he wanted Red X to hear about it. He didn't think that the new crime lord had an IQ low enough to let idiot thugs wander around with wagging tongues and information regarding a criminal he'd just framed. If in fact, Blockbuster _had_ framed him. Or Red X could have read too deeply into Pinocchio's words and he was about to walk straight into an enemy who hadn't framed him, but wanted his skull smeared on a concrete road somewhere.

_Geez, I suck at this solo hero thing._

Red X ghosted his way through the deserted space between warehouses, already knowing which one he wanted. He gave the building a good once over and decided the best point of entry…oddly enough he didn't think a window would work. Too high up, too easy to see. He circled, listening intently and picking up broken snatches of conversation inside. With a shrug, he decided he probably didn't have to play the subtle thief for this gig. Not when it required him to – most likely – beat the living daylights out of a giant moth-man.

He walked up to the side entryway, disdainfully picked the humble padlock and stepped inside the warehouse's dark interior, the scent of wet earth and…something else assaulting his nose. The inside of the warehouse sported a mud-coated paintjob and mountains of freshly turned earth all piled randomly about the room. He heard voices from the opposite side of the room, unaware of him. He grimaced and slipped silently inside, closing the door and moving forward to –

_Crunch!_

X froze.

That...didn't sound good…and he'd just smashed something under his boot. He quickly flinched away from it, disgusted to find the oozing, flattened carcass of what might have once been a mutant insect of some kind. The long, spiny legs twitched despite its untimely death and the thief wiped his foot quickly on the clean concrete, suppressing a gag of revulsion.

Killer Moth never did leash his pets very well.

_Good Lord, I hope he wasn't **fond** of that one…_Red X thought morosely.

"Daddy! DADDY!"

The screeching caught his attention immediately. It sounded female…at least he thought it did, but he could be mistaken. Maybe Killer Moth had bred some kind of super intelligent screaming insect of doom; one to deafen the Teen Titans and somehow thwart the adolescent ass-kickers. The thief ducked behind a thick mound of grayish, black dirt and massaged his aching ears. He crouched there, stunned, staring at the damp soil and wondering what kind of monster could possess a voice so hideous, so mind-numbing so…

He looked over the mound.

Oh…

Standing behind an obviously distracted Killer Moth, a skinny blond girl in pink Converse, girlish hip-huggers and hot-pink pull-over, stomped around like an anorexic dinosaur, practically breathing fire in her rage. Red X watched her clomp about, having her tantrum, from the safety of the dirt mound. He began to think perhaps Killer Moth wasn't the real monster in this bizarre family tie. That girl had the whole 'beauty-is-only-skin-deep' thing going on for her.

"Fang broke up with me! Again!" she shrieked, whirling around, swinging what looked like a half eaten Care Bear in wild circles. "That's jerk! That idiotic, drooling, no good, double-crossing…GRRRRRRR! I'm going to rig his bed with a can of Raid! I'm going to find the world's biggest shoe and…and step on him! I'm…I…I _MISS_ HIM! _WAAAAAAH!_" Here she fell on her knees and started bawling shamelessly.

Red X felt vaguely horrified.

Bad enough Killer Moth somehow had a hand in the conception of this demon-blond, but that she had a fling going down with that giant, mutated, spider…guy. The thief couldn't stop the skin-crawling 'Eeeeeeew!' that shot through his brain at the mental projections and tried to block it out. Not something he needed running through his mind like an unwanted car insurance jingle. One more thing on Red's growing List of Things to Pissed About.

Killer Moth tuned his daughter out, far too absorbed with staring into a large muddy vat of…slimy, squirmy, somethings, to bother with the demonic noise-making of his vile little girl. He kept looking into the pit, checking a clipboard in his furry claws, twitching his wings excitedly and muttering things like 'Yes…yes…' The girl went right one screaming and screaming and bawling…

Red X couldn't take it.

"DAMN GIRL! SHUT THAT OFF!" he roared, leaping up on the dirt mound, hands over his ears.

She sucked a gasp, tears vanishing instantly. "Daddy! Someone's in our hideout!"

"Hideout my ass. My cat hides better then you two," X leered. "Sorry to interrupt the soap-opera but 'daddy' and I need to have a chat."

Killer Moth leapt protectively in front of the girl, shielding her from the irritated intruder brandishing the clipboard in his direction. The mad man glanced fondly at her over his shoulder. "Kitten, sweetie. Daddy needs to kill a thief right now. Could you go fetch _the device_ for me?"

"The _device_?" Red repeated. "Who _says_ that?"

Moth looked insulted. "What would you know?"

"Too much if you're willing to chat about me to Blockbuster," Red X spat. "You'd best tell me what you told him. That way I won't have to drag you and the dateless wonder to the cop-shop."

The older villain glowered. "You're joking. A _thief_ bring me in? Killer Moth? Ha! If I thought you were worth my trouble I might kill you myself. As it is, I think I'll feed you to my children. They're starving."

"What did you tell Blockbuster?" Red X continued, undeterred.

"Nothing," growled Moth, looking anxiously for Kitten and the 'device'. "Just that he should talk to your old pal Dr. Chang."

"Chang? The crazy guy in the moon-suit? That guy?" Red X recalled this vaguely. He didn't really trust Killer Moth to tell the truth, indeed, he seemed to have given outthat little morsel a bit too eagerly...dropping bread crumbs. X didn't buy it.

Moth chuckled. "He seems to have taken an interest in you. What ever did you do? Heh heh."

"You're daughter is turning red," X announced drolly, changing the subject.

Sure enough, the towheaded teen had gone rigid; standing there with her hands clenched, shoulders hunched; face contorted with rage. She eyed the thief with something like loathing and hatred mashed into one evil-eyed glare. Red X noted her skin had gone a brilliant cherry red whilst her baby-blue eyes burned with arsenic laced fury. For a moment he couldn't fathom her change in attitude until…

"_Dateless_!" Kitten screeched. "Why you dirty little thief! I'm going to strangle you, you miserable, smartass, bas-,"

"Kitten! Get the device!" Killer Moth repeated loudly.

For a moment she shot her father a look of hatred almost equal to that she'd given X. Then suddenly, she perked up, an idea hatched in her brain sure as if a light bulb had popped on over her head. She leapt off the ground with a disturbingly evil grin and Red X felt something go 'poing!' somewhere inside his head. A small warning sign that meant he might end up on the wrong side of something nasty for the second time tonight. Kitten rushed to a table set up beside the pit and spun around, pointing it at X with childish glee.

"Let's see how you smart you are now!" crowed the girl. She hit a button and…

…nothing.

Red X blinked.

He waited.

He looked around.

Examined his foot.

Drummed his fingers against his thigh.

"Sweetie…" Killer Moth said.

"What? Can't you see I'm busy?" Kitten spat, obviously confused as to why X hadn't spontaneously combusted for her.

The moth-man grimaced. "You need to turn it on."

It was Kitten's turn to blink. "Oh…"

Less than impressed or intimidated by Kitten's technological retardation, Red X took the liberty of leaping off the dirt mound and landing in front of Killer Moth. Red X moved like greased lightening, flicking a shuriken into his fingers, he darted forward and slammed his boot into Moth's chest. The man fell back with a heavy grunt, his giant wings flapping heavy, stirring dust into the heavy air, but X landed in a crouch, his foot aching from the blow.

He'd landed the kick correctly but hitting this guy had all the unpleasantness of kicking a brick wall with fur.

Those giant wings pumped and the man rose up in the air, eyes dark with fury. X figured this as good a time as any for those shuriken and hurled several the flying man-monster. They exploded in a haze of red smoke, blinding the winged villain effectively…or so X thought. He got a nasty surprise as the moth-man exploded from the cloud of crimson and smashed him to the ground, pinning his arms in the dirt and landing hard on the smaller fighter.

He'd read somewhere in second grade that, like the bats that hunted them, moths possessed their own kind of sonic vision. Perhaps Killer Moth did too. _Well damn_, the thief thought. X growled, struggling to throw the heavy moth-man off him, wiry arms thrashing around in his captor's grip. Killer Moth looked startled as the larcenist proved himself unusually tough for a felon not interested in the whole 'battle the Titans and take over the world' bid. The man had to use his pumping wings to push himself down harder to keep the struggling burglar on the floor.

"Kitten! Turn it on!" he roared, grunting as X nearly ripped his arm free.

The girl fumbled with buttons.

"I got it!" she cried triumphantly.

Killer Moth lunged off the thief and flew at his daughter who hurled the unknown object at her father. He snatched it from the air and laughed maniacally – don't they all? – and pointed at the tussled Red X. The dirt mound began to tremble, little bits of earth crumbling and slithering off the sides of the hills and gathering around the burglar's wrists. He pulled himself to his feet quickly, mesmerized by the ground a couple feet away, a lump of dirt slowly rising, thrusting upward and out toward him.

"Kill him, my children! Kill!" he crowed wickedly.

_Oh crap…_

Red X leapt away as the ground erupted in a spray of rock and soil. The thief landed in a crouch and immediately flipped back several times as the ground where he pushed off with his hands burst open similarly. He landed awkwardly as his foot fell on moving earth and sent him tumbling to one side, spilling himself on the ground as it exploded beside him. Dirt showered the thief, half burying him. Then something slithered, the soft hissing sound of something passing through and over wet soil registering in his auditory senses.

He rolled over and away just as a giant, gray earth worm wriggled from the ground where he'd sprawled a moment before.

X leapt up and bounded out of range, watching with a mixture of horror and disgust as the giant, clumsy things began to inch toward him, slithering across the dirt like headless snakes. The thief wondered vaguely how they planned to kill him without any teeth to speak of…Hey….how _were_ they going to kill him without any teeth? He stood there, hands at his sides, blinking as the first and nearest worm reached his foot and took a step back before it could do any damage. It inched toward him again, moving half a foot at a time.

The thief glowered at Killer Moth. The man looked horrified, his latest and supposedly greatest experiment proving a _pathetic flop_. Not only could these worms not catch their prey, but they had no means with which to kill said prey. He'd worked so hard to make them huge he'd forgotten they had no killer man-eating instincts yet.

"Yeah. The time to chat is over," X said dryly. "But I think you've got something to tell the police for me."

Killer Moth looked like a fly in a spider's web, Kitten squealed and made a run for it but X whipped out a very special projectile and…

-heist-

Commissioner Jones was having a really bad night.

Not only had he gotten a call at twenty to midnight on account of some dead bookie on the docks, but it seemed that this apparently random act of violent might not actually have been at random. He'd dug into Peterson's 'clean' records and found several discrepancies in a lot of his annual accounting reports. Dockings that never happened, names that don't exist, all pointing to a middle man covering for something illegal.

So Peterson had been dirty.

Jones sighed and rubbed his aching, bleary eyes. Blinking at the glowing computer screen he reached for his mug of coffee and wished that Davy's Doughnuts ran twenty-four hours. Then he kicked himself for thinking such a generic cop thought.

"I've been at this for way too long," he grumbled, reading through and making note of yet another misfile in Peterson's reports.

This one occurred the day before Christmas, the same day the part-time Titan, Bumblebee, had reported in a drug-smuggling operation along the coastlines; supposedly birthed at Jump City until its doomed voyage into the young woman's capable hands. From what he remembered from the case, the fierce African American girl had ripped them all a literal new one and made them steer the ship into the nearest bay and turn themselves in.

They'd all done so quite alarming willingness.

There came a knock at his office door, a quick, almost frantic rapping sound of a fist against the blurry glass pane.

He looked up, glowering. He'd have to report all these unusual filings to Robin and there was nothing Jones hated more then reporting things to a teenager, no matter what Dark Knight they'd worked under in a previous life. A skinny, spiky-haired kid in a cape and mask was still a skinny, spiky-haired kid in a cape and mask no matter what Dark Knight they'd formerly worked under. Having to do background on a victim and then turn his findings into a punk who looked like he just barely managed his way past puberty did a number on his pride and therefore put him in a lousy kind of mood.

"I hope you have a really incredible reason for disturbing me," Jones growled, shoving his door open.

A pretty female desk jockey in blue and a baffled looking cop who'd joined the force recently gaped back at him. The newbie shook his head and pointed wordlessly out the front doors of the lobby. Jones' sharp gray eyes darted to the indicated entry where a small gathering of police had bunched up at the door, chattering and milling around excitedly, all confusion, talk and motion.

The secretary took over. "Sir…you might want to see this," she said.

The man noted her expression – her name was Kathy and she a reputation for flightiness. So if she'd gone taciturn now it must carry some gravity – and practically sprinted for the front doors. He roared and shoved and fired people who probably didn't work here until they cleared a path for the wild Chief of Police. The balding official marched out onto the front steps of the station…and stared.

Hanging from the streetlight, roped up in what looked like red goo of some sort, swung Killer Moth and his juvenile daughter, Kitten. A pile of papers, sinister mechanical devices and a couple of what looked like mutated earthworms lay damningly beside the pair. All the evidence needed to put Moth away and ship Kitten off to corrective boarding school for delinquent teeni-boppers. Jones stepped forward, sweeping his hat off his head and scratching it in wonder.

"MMMMMMMMMM!" Kitten screamed kicking wildly, legs pin wheeling in the open air.

The reason for her lack of verbal wit: They had giant red X's plastered over their mouths with the words 'interrogate me' scrawled across them. Jones noticed Kitten had a large envelope hanging around her neck with a single word written in red slanted lettering. No…not a word…a name. He reached up and snatched the envelope, barking at his men to get them down and start questioning them about the giant earth worms, then about who brought them in.

Jones picked up his cell and dialed.

"Robin," he said, grimacing. "I have something for you here. A letter. Want me to read it?"

"What? What letter? From who?" Robin's voice demanded from the other side. He sounded agitated.

Jones smirked. "It was delivered with a neatly packaged Killer Moth. Want to hear it?"

"No. I'll be there in ten. I want to talk to Moth myself. Robin out."

Did nobody say good-bye anymore? Jones rolled his eyes and hung up, regretting his decision to call the hyper-intense Teen Titan to the scene before he got a chance to question the two criminals himself. Moth had busted out of jail a couple months earlier, but the Titans had been preoccupied with something else at the time. So who besides the Titans and the police bothered with chasing down villainous moth-men and their super-annoying 'little princess'.

Jones tapped his finger against the envelope…then held it up to the light from overhead. Though the thin paper, the dark red inking of the enclosed message read one simple sentence…not even a full sentence.

_Not a killer. _

_- Signed, X._


	7. Breadcrumbs

**Breadcrumbs**

Robin was livid.

Therefore, the other Titans wisely gave the young man his distance as the thoroughly enraged super-hero read and re-read Red X's little one-liner, addressed specifically and solely for him. Commissioner Jones also had the tact to keep his mouth shut, merely standing there with his doughnut and his mug of black coffee grounds. However, he _did_slurp noisily, not bothering to hide his pleasure in the young vigilante's frustration. Oddly enough, he found this whole thing pretty funny by this point. A thief playing hero and a hero chasing the thief who chased the murderer.

Or that's how it looked to him.

Robin suddenly crunched the paper and began tearing it into little pieces; Jones stepped away from the teenager, deciding for the sake of his good health he'd best keep his distance. He, Robin that is,turned to the police station and stomped inside, snarling at Jones that he wanted to know which cell Killer Moth and Kitten were in. The man hesitated, concerned for a moment as to what the irrational young man just might do in his rage. Obviously he didn't like having a mocking note stuffed down his throat like a bitter medicine, but Jones hoped he had the sense not to go stampeding through the cell block beating felons as he went.

"Interrogation room B," he replied disapprovingly. "You should probably wait until…"

But the Titan was already storming down the hall, lights exploding and flickering ominously in the wake of his passing, plants shriveling, wall-paper stripping from the cheap stucco, while a chorus of demons serenaded his path so dark and furious was his aura…or that's how it seemed anyway. The other Titans peered cautiously around the door frame after their leader, obviously somewhat concerned for their spiky-haired friend. Jones, similarly hiding behind the door, exchanged looks with them and Beast Boy coughed.

"We should probably follow him…make sure he doesn't hurt someone," he remarked nervously.

Starfire had already taken off after the caped crusader, calling his name and flying down the hall in pursuit of the raging Boy Wonder. Beast Boy glanced inquiringly at Raven who gave him the 'I'm-supposed-to-be-an-emotionless-witch-girl-so-don't-ask-me' look. Or this might have been the result of her anger at Robin for taking off after X on his own with some half-assed story about 'quick run through such-and-such alley'. When selected to search the city with Robin, she had not appreciate getting dropped like a bar of soap so he could go play angsty vigilante and gallivant after Red X on his own.

Jones stuffed the remainder of his doughnut into his mouth and motioned for them to follow him. They complied and he guided them to the darkened room adjoined to interrogation room B.

Beast Boy immediately squealed something like 'Sweet! I always wanted to see one of these things!' and pressed his face against the one-way glass. Raven cleared her throat, trying not to look embarrassed for the changeling. Jones grinned smirkily at her and she glowered, crossing the room and folding her arms over her breasts and watching the scene from the opposite side of the glass.

Several police officers paced either side of Killer Moth, obviously using the Good Cop, Bad Cop routine on the highly amused villian. The mad man didn't seem phased by their threats; indeed, he actually had a slight grin on his face. Large strips of what looked like industrial strength fly-paper had been coiled about the base of his wings and his powerful arms clamped in heavy duty iron arm cuffs. Despite this he still looked wholly confident. Apparently the mere mortal attempts of the local law enforcement didn't bother the moth-man in the slightest.

"They've been questioning him for some time. He's like a giant fuzzy rock. He won't budge on anything," Jones remarked as Robin opened the door and motioned for the officers to get lost. "He can't deny the giant mutant earth worms, but he refuses to say anything about why Red X brought him in or remark on the instructions to interrogate him. Kitten's no better, if not worse."

Robin had his hands planted on the table next to the giant moth-man, his mouth moving slightly as he whispered something to Killer Moth alone. Raven glanced at the Commissioner, her voice velvety, even and oddly mature.

"I don't think you know Robin very well."

The man looked like he might have snorted, but choked it off before he had to eat his words. Killer Moth had buried his face in the arms, bawling on the table top and apparently spilling everything to the glowering Teen Titan next to him. Robin folded his arms and glanced up at the glass as if aware people watched, still glowering. Beast Boy and Raven both inclined their heads at the adult with equally smirky kind of expressions. They didn't need to say 'told yu' so' to get the point across. Jones glowered into his coffee mug.

He really hated kids.

-heist-

Red X dropped through the skylight of a large tech factory, the roaring and banging sound of steel pistons smothering any noise the professional thief might have made. He landed on the spindly metal walkway suspended over the roaring, thundering machines, revolving metal arms, assembly line conveyer belts and vats of steaming chemical run off. He doubted that anything he did would get detected in this mess and ghosted across the metal path toward a steep flight of stairs.

He jumped them three at a time and jogged to a halt at the foot of them, blinking around the giant, crowded room of mechanical chaos. Steely chrome droids and pre-programmed robots whizzed from job to job with inhuman proficiency. Sparks spilled from a welding bot overhead and X moved away as the yellow shower of heat fell over his shoulders. Glaring somewhat testily up at the thing he moved on. He knew somewhere amid these automated factory workers at least one of them had a pulse in place of a battery pack.

Just one…

He eyed flitted around the various identical robots.

But which one?

Suddenly a sleek metal figure stepped from the darkness to his right, just on the opposite side of the conveyer belt. The figure in the light took a slim and certainly delicate looking feminine physique, though X knew from experience she could bench a small forklift. Her skin shone brilliantly silver metal, hair falling down her narrow back in a long mettalic sheet. But though the body had all alloy skin from the neck down and she wore what looked like fitted body armor, the face that looked back at him was human.

Large, royal blue eyes deep as faceted jewels stared soberly from a smooth-skinned complexion. When she spoke, her lips moved over very white almost bleached teeth.

"Bannon," she said in a soft, throaty voice. One could almost ignore the static as her mechanized vocal chords produced the sound. "I told you I do not wish to remove you from my factory again. I might hurt you and I would feel most regretful."

He smiled at her and took a seat on a large, humming box that rather looked like a washing machine. "You mean you'd miss me?"

"I suppose," she replied. "Why are you here? If you wish to steal something, I will have to throw you out."

She didn't look keen on the idea, but those blue eyes could get deadly fierce when what she protected was threatened. Red X didn't want to try tangling with her sleek, unbreakable skin and wicked fast reflexes. Her name, he knew from a couple old news headlines, had once been Wren De'Marke. She lived originally in Europe and hopped a boat to the USA illegally at sixteen. Unfortunately she was caught in a deadly fire that burned almost ninety percent of her skin from her body and ruined much of her muscle sinew.

A foreign entrepreneur who'd recently taken up residence in the United States took pity up on her…The name of that enterprising man: Alex Sasaki. Red X (or Bannon to be more correct) had met her during one of his father's pompously broadcasted 'personal' visits to Wren's hospital room. There he blustered and chatted far too animatedly to the somber looking girl, while introducing a very peeved Bannon, who tried his best to evade the camera…they'd always put him off even before he went criminal.

He remembered it vaguely, yet it had never fully faded from his memory, sticking with him after five years:

_He stood in a corner of the hospital room, hating the bleached, sterilized sensation of cleanliness used to hide the sickness, the death, and the wounds of those who resided there. Alex Sasaki was off on a loud and pretentious rant about how he cared so deeply for Wren's welfare and how it did him proud to see her up and about, like a daughter, really, he was so proud. Then he glanced (subtly, oh so subtly) at his watch and made an exit. Bannon stood there, alone, loathing everything about his outing and wishing he were sitting at home in his garage. _

_After his father left, Bannon stuck around (mostly to avoid the cameras following his old man). The girl in the bed gave him a cool look, deep blue eyes pulling the younger teen's cat-like gaze into her infinite navy blue pools. Intelligence gleamed out at him from that pale face, more then he expected from the poor, burned foreign girl. _

"_You don't have to stay on my account," she said. _

"_I'm not. But I would if it doesn't bother you," he replied._

"_It doesn't. I hate the cameras too."_

Their relationship took off from there.

The operation left her voice mechanical, her skin metal, and part of her spinal cord and brain full of nano-technology. At first she'd thought she'd been totally saved…until her emotions began to fade from her facial features. The muscles in her face ceased to function properly for anything other than speaking, blinking and the slightest of eyebrow movement. Her aging process ceased as well, metal skin unable to age and the brain trauma stopping her hormonal glands from functioning.

Soon she faded from the human world and chose to associate herself with the machines she could now hear via the technology in her brain. To her computers and robots she was program alphasilver.34… To Red X she was Wren and to Wren…he was Bannon.

"I know that you can hear all the communications that pass through air and land-line," he said anxiously. "I was wondering…"

"There is a young man," Wren interrupted. "I did not think at first he spoke of you because he said the thief he spoke of killed someone. I know you do not kill. But he said that you killed a man. This concerns me." Her blue eyes looked very wide from where he stood, almost emotional, though she hadn't had the ability to show emotion for over ten years.

Red X shook his head. "I didn't kill anyone. I've been framed so I'm trying to catch the real deal. Understand, Wren?"

"Yes. I am at ease," she replied, looking expressionless as usual. "I have overheard through net conversations men speaking about you. One voice in particular I keep hearing, asking everyone about you. He asks about your criminal records, your MO's, your age, your habits, how you seem to think, who you are and many other things. He has collected quite a large compilation of data on you."

He felt sick, inches from puking at these words. "Does…does he know-,"

"I am not certain he knows your identity. He cannot know of my existence and I am I only one who knows your true identity, save your old mentor. Correct?" She could have passed for a computer program, but she'd taken to talking like this after years of very precise voice commands to her beloved machines. He nodded mutely. "Very good. Then he cannot know who you are. However, I think he has a very thorough psychoanalysis of your person. He knows you are both a kleptomaniac and suffer mildly from paranoid schizophrenia. I also suspect he knows of your recent insomnia."

Red X felt like melting into a dirty little puddle on the ground as his friend coolly announced she too knew he was partially insane. He glowered at her, twiddling his thumbs. "It's not actually that bad. Only sounds awful when you say it like _that_."

"I do not see it bad or good either way. You are you and most Americans suffer some form of obsessive compulsive disorders, anyway. You are not so different."

"I'm an international thief."

"So you are different in that way. Not so different any other way."

He liked Wren's logic. "So can you give me any clue as to who the man asking all these questions is? I have a guess, but I'd like you to tell me what you think before I tell you."

Wren cocked her head like she was listening to something through all the roaring din of the machines around her. "He always insists to those he speaks with not to call him by name. He is a very wary man. He suspects that a creature like I exists and is tapping all lines and frequencies, but I am not a priority I don't think. I'm not fond of police and radio noise often bothers me."

"So no?" X clarified; rather worried that Blockbuster might suspect Wren even existed. Not even the Titans knew about her but since she technically was a runaway and illegal inhabitant of the US she didn't feel like making their acquaintance.

"No. I am sorry."

"It's okay. Just keep a low profile. I'll find out who it is. Any idea where they broadcast from?"

"Untraceable," she said promptly.

X blew air through his lips in exasperation. "Fine. Thanks, Wren. It really helps. It was good to see you. I won't bother you for a bit." He leapt up the stairs, bounding up the steep flight and making to teleport through the still open skylight.

"Wait."

He stopped.

Wren stepped forward, deep blue eyes on him. "He is…planning something of the sinister nature for you. He would like to catch you. He wants to hurt you, Red X. I want you to exercise your most complex of defenses because I think he seeks to terminate your existence. I hear him speak fondly of killing and he is most upset with you." She paused; then went on. "He has a great power at his disposal. I think he knows that you are coming and I think that he will…"

"Terminate me?" Red X said with a grin. "Don't worry. I had that much figured out already."

"Then you can defend yourself? You are properly prepared?" she asked sharply.

"Maybe."

"Not good enough. You cannot proceed."

Red X smiled rather wickedly though she couldn't see it. "Wren, love, life isn't one-hundred percent all the time. That's what makes it fun." She didn't seem happy with this logic, but spoke anyway.

"Then speak with the ones called Jinx and Gizmo. They have returned from Steel City on their master's orders. They should know more of this man's whereabouts. Brother Blood has rented their abilities to the man who seeks your termination. Find them and you shall find him. It sounds like they are seeking to break into Soto Labs. They've tripped the alarms on the second floor so you'd best be quick before the Titans get there."

But Red X had already taken off through the window.

-heist-


	8. Foul Play of the Day

**Foul Play of the Day**

"Be careful you snot-licker! You almost touched the one on your left."

"Gizmo. I'm within inches of at least five of them at a time."

"Well…you came really close to _that_ one!"

"Shuttup. I can't concentrate while you're jabbering at me!" Jinx hissed, catty eyes glittering like rose quartz in the darkness.

Gizmo stood at the doorway with his mechanical backpack set out on the floor like a laptop, snarling and fussing while his classmate performed the gymnastic part of their break in. He'd expertly taken care of the security, over-riding all the airlocks in the doors and clearing their way to the high security vaults. In a stroke of brilliance he'd actually used a program that shut down all the security in the entire building save that protecting the vault.

They'd entered Soto labs over twenty minutes ago, but arrived at the vault only seconds ago. They already knew what awaited them, a long room full of highly sensitive motion sensor laser-beams, a complex key-coded lock that would only open the nearly indestructible safe if keyed perfectly the first time. Meanwhile DNA samples were taken from the left hand by a machine, only allowing certain highly important personal into the jealously guarded vault.

Jinx returned to the task at hand. She inhaled a slow calming breath and began to maneuver her way through the field of red lasers with a delicacy of a ballerina, her dark blue dress shifting, stretching taunt across her slender body, carefully fitted not to flutter and fall across some stray security beam. She leapt, pirouetting through a gap in the crisscross laser grid, diving and rolling narrowly under a low lying red beam and springing to her feet finally on the opposite side of the grid.

"Alright! Go Jinx!" cheered Gizmo from the entrance of the room. Several security guards lay moaning and listless under a pile of rubble that 'unluckily' fell from the ceiling and landed right on their heads. The fiendish little backpack-wearing boy danced on the spot with exuberance. "Wait until Blockbuster gets a load of this!"

Jinx smirked to herself as she slipped a glove over her delicate fingers and began keying the code, placing her other hand at the DNA collector, a small sample of blood hidden in a smooth little sack over her index finger. The devise took her blood and dinged back at her, a mechanized voice welcoming 'Terry Soto' to the vault. She smirked and reached for the door…only to have it swing open totally of its own propulsion. She gaped. Gizmo gasped…then fumed.

"Hey guys."

A distorted chucked drifted from the interior of the vault. A lean, black figure pushed itself off the back wall of the vault, stepping sinuously into the light. His hand swung lazily up in front of the slashed skull mask, gripping what looked like a transparent floppy disk, delicate circuitry visible through the plastic casing. He waggled it back and forth. Tauntingly.

"Looking for this?" Red X asked, amused.

"YOU SCUZZ-BALL! That's ours!" Gizmo bawled, positively going into seizures of fury. "How'd you get in here before us?"

Jinx reserved herself, folding her thin arms over her chest as the thief sauntered out of the vault, stepping away from him as he gestured warningly with the precious disk. Her rosy cheeks looked unusually flushed, having gotten quite a work out fighting her way through ample security personal and acrobatic mazes; her pink eyes glinted like those of a wounded predator. Cheated and furious.

He chuckled again in reply to Gizmo's outburst and Jinx held out a hand to keep the smaller HIVE agent at bay. Her lip curled at she studied him, eyes flicking down his dark uniform and back up to his masked face. Gauging. Red X kept himself a good distance out of her arms reach. Jinx had a reputation for getting wicked dangerous. Wren he feared because of her ruthless efficiency, _this_ woman he respected because of her erratic unpredictability. He suspected she would just as soon ally with him as claw his eyes out with her sharp little nails.

"So…what do you want?" she asked, voice poisonously sweet.

He cocked his head. "What can I get?"

"You steal without a reason already in mind?" Jinx said, lip curling again. "That's hot."

"Who are you working for?" Red X cut in smoothly. "Tech like this isn't cheap in Jump City. Not cheap in Metropolis for that matter. Lex Luthor would give an eye for this stuff…or maybe someone else's eye."

Gizmo hopped up and down with rage. "Get lost you snot-barfing, butt-muncher! Jinx! Take the disk and beat him to a pulp! He's going to get us caught!"

"On the contrary, you guys are more likely to get _me_ caught," Red X simpered. "I snuck in here when you idiots turned off all the security in the building. You've already set off the emergency router system. Only goes off when all the security goes down, a built-in default for almost every existing security system in the world." Short smug pause. "Made it a cakewalk for me and when the Titans get here they'll have a field-day with you two. Robin'll be in a foul mood, I'm sure."

Jinx silenced Gizmo's fountain of childish insults with a pink, hellish stare and smiled at X. "I'm sure we can work together on this. Our boss will pay big-bucks for that disk and its twin at Wayne Enterprises. You can help us steal it. We'll cut you in on the cash."

Red X smirked. "You work for…?"

"Brother Blood," she said promptly. "HIVE will reward you well for your-,"

X laughed loudly, stopping her half-way into her offer. She glared acidly. "Not HIVE, sister. Brother Blood rented you out tonight. Heard Gizmo say something rather loudly toward that respect." He nodded to a positively nuclear Gizmo, saluting snottily.

Jinx, meanwhile, flushed a brilliant crimson. "Well, _someone_ has an agenda," she laughed melodically and somehow horribly. "If you must know, it's Blockbuster. Though, that information will be floating all over the streets so it won't do you any good, thief. Now give me that disk, else you want to meet him in person... trust me when I say you don't."

X backed down the steps leading up to the vault, tipping his head, as if weighing his options. "I dunno…I _could_…"

"Blockbuster will _kill_ you!" Jinx burst out suddenly, almost inspired by his suicidal inclination actually. "He doesn't abide thieves stealing when he doesn't tell them to. What good is this disk to _you_? You just stole it because you didn't want us to have it. Is it really worth risking your life? For a laugh?"

He grinned and pocketed the disk. "Actually, I'm taking just because I don't want old _BB_ to have it." He blew her a kiss. "Tootles."

"_Rah_!"

She lunged at him with lashing arms. Pink arcs of light burst from her arms, but the cat-burglar cart-wheeled away from her as nimbly as any gymnast and hurled what looked like a giant crimson X at her. She shrieked as it slammed her across the belly and hurled her up against the wall, pinning her there, winded. She growled, trying to fling her hexing pink magic at him. But X had vanished before she could so much as give him a bad hair day.

Oddly, when the Teen Titans burst through the door a second later and cuffed Gizmo… she had an incredibly happy grin plastered across her pale face.

"What are you so happy about?" Beast Boy inquired, frowning as he piled her into the police car, ripped bits of the giant, sticky 'X' still slinging to the soft black velvet of her dress.

She grinned. "Unlucky day for thieves who turn heroic," she snickered.

Robin, standing nearby, didn't miss the innuendo.

-heist-

"Generous of him," Raven remarked to Robin.

"He stole the disk," Robin said, not bothering to look at her from the front of his computer terminal. He reached absently for the Ready To Eat can of soup he'd kinda-but-not-really warmed in the microwave. His fingers missed the cup, waving around blindly as the distracted teenager remained fixated upon the screen. Raven frowned at him; pushing the can into his groping fingers and watching as he downed the lot in one go before returning to his typing.

"He's turned in three criminals in the span of a single night," Raven told him wryly. "I think he's suffering from a hero complex. A nasty turn for a thief, wouldn't you agree?" Meaningful pause.

_Clickity-click-click_ went the keyboard.

"Robin…what did X say to you on that rooftop? What did you say and more importantly why has it prompted X to become the next rising star of vigilantes everywhere? He's like the poster boy for the Justice League of America or haven't you noticed the jailhouse filling up?" Raven continued, a sarcastic edge leaking into her dour tones. "The only criminal he hasn't caught yet is Dr. Chang and that guy seems to have vanished off the map anyhow."

_Clickity-click-click._

"Robin. You ditched me, your teammate to go chase Red X by yourself, right after he's proven himself a dangerous killer. This rather concerns me," she said darkly, glaring at the back of his head.

_Clickity-click-click._

She hated it – hated it – when Robin did this unhealthily obsessive work ethic thing. She hadn't seen it since Slade and she'd been more then happy to bid it a less-than-fond farewell. The last time he'd decided to lock himself in his room with only the scraps, clues and bits and pieces of his arch nemesis with the hopes of uncovering some kind of sleuthing epiphany, he'd gotten it in his head to create the Red X suit and bamboozle them all with a string of robberies meant to bait Slade. It had not ended well and she didn't appreciate their leader slipping almost effortlessly back into that old, dangerous mind-set.

And all over a single thief.

She should have seen it coming. She had only herself to blame she supposed and perhaps the newly turned murderer Red X…however she knew she should have not been surprised when Jinx had, laughing hysterically, told them that Red X had in fact gotten himself into something far bigger than anything a mere thief could handle. Upon Robin's suddenly, intensely serious stare of one possessed by a thought, she and the two remaining Titans exchanged dubious looks and sure enough.

"Robin…I know you want to get this guy," she said gently. He finally looked up from the screen, blinking at her as though seeing her for the first time. "I know…Red X gets to you, but whatever he said he'd still just a thief. He didn't get away with killing and he won't get away with this. We'll get him, but please, please don't start doing this on your own."

Robin frowned. "He's my responsibility Raven. I made him."

"No. The two poor souls who spawned him did," she replied frostily.

"You know what I mean," he said, getting somewhat testy.

Raven folded her arms over her chest, gambling on a trump card, she pulled from the sleeve of her leotard…figuratively speaking. "Starfire is getting worried. You know how she gets over you. She hates seeing you like this," she said persuasively. "She's been moping around all day."

The Boy Wonder did at least flinch. "I know…" he muttered. His hands stilled on the keyboard for a moment. The fact he didn't totally cave at the mention of the alien's name spoke volumes. "But it can't be helped can it? We've got to know what X's next move it and this is the only way. He won't move until nightfall, he's always been that way. He's nocturnal so I have until tonight to figure out what he's planning."

They stared at each other for a bit, feeling the uncomfortable tension in the air. Raven glanced at the computer, trying to distract herself from the feeling at somehow all reasoning and logic in the world wouldn't prevent Robin's pursuit of X. She could, perhaps, make whatever plans he spawned less foolhardy, but she didn't think she could stop him…little could in a state like this.

However, (Raven glanced at the dark-haired boy) Robin seemed to have every confidence that Red would make no move until night. Raven, drumming her fingers against the counter top as she read the screen, didn't think he could have placed the thief so easily in a shoebox if he'd only took part in 'a occasional night patrol' like he assured her – oh yes, assured her – every time she thought he looked to tired, too strained…like he hadn't been sleeping properly.

How deeply did this obsession go? Would Robin make X into another Slade? Or had Red X really become like that madman; murdering for his own criminal designs? Was she not taking this seriously enough? A man was dead and yet she could barely make herself look at Red X and think: _murderer_.

She didn't want to believe it, almost couldn't because on some level, some part of her had actually sat down and decided behind her back that she didn't really think him capable of killing. Not like that, for such trivial purposes. He was too clever to get caught up in schemes of death and murder…not while he had his exceptional thieving skills. She'd spoken with him once (though she'd never let Robin in on the details) and during that time the empath had come to the realization that he in fact radiated no dark aura. No killing qualities. Had he fooled even her impressive psychic powers?

"Robin," she said softly. She hadn't planned yet what to say as a follow-up.

"Red X is going after WAYNE Enterprises," he said suddenly.

"What?"

"WAYNE Enterprises: The partnering branch on the opposite end of the city holds the sister chip to the one he stole. Red X will want the pair; one can't work without the other." Robin's fingers flew in blurred clicking zigzags across the keyboard. "The company's careful about releasing information. Don't know what they do specifically, only that they're crucial security devises. New age kind of technology. Why would X want that though?"

Raven looked dour. "He's a thief. Those chips are probably very advanced adaptors of some kind. Makes hacking security a breeze or something. He's still a thief, no matter what I suppose."

This gave Robin pause. "Yeah…a thief."

"Robin?"

"That's what he told me…'I'm not a killer! I'm a thief!'"

Raven inspected the screen, trying to keep her face detached from her emotions, her suspicions. Could she tell him? '_Robin, I hate to tell you this, but I think that guy you've been obsessively chasing for almost half a year now isn't what you think he is. I know you've like dedicated your life to nailing this guy and you probably know more about him than me, done more research, but I'm magical and psychic and I sense he's not so bad. You need to calm down. He's not the source of all evil you know.'_ Sure. She'd write her own eulogy while she was at it.

"Oh, look you have mail," she observed, changing the subject.

He blinked and opened it, then snorted with a bemused kind of humor as he read it to himself. The sender, a one 'Bandit' seemed to be on friendly terms with Boy Wonder. He had some trouble sleeping apparently. Raven supposed it had something to do with that wild imagination as she read his tangent upon the counting of demonic sheep and pleas for sleep aid, obviously very amused with themselves. She rather thought it odd…Robin chatted online? Robin? Her Robin: Titan leader, Boy Wonder, vigilante extraordinaire?

Chatting?

"I met him due to insomnia," Robin told her, keying a quick, smart-ass reply to Bandit. "Back when I couldn't sleep. After that mask incident."

Raven grimaced inwardly, blinked out. "Yes." A pause. "Bandit?"

"Bandit13. He's loud, sarcastic a mostly a selfish kind of jerk," he laughed, sending it and returning his gaze to Raven. "He's smart though. Wicked smart. We have philosophical discussions at three AM."

"Hmm…sound's deep," Raven intoned.

"Shut up, Rae."

Raven inspected another window behind the search program Robin was running and frowned as a familiar list of names loomed up at her. It had shrunk since the last time she'd seen it but she knew those names and the faces attached to them. Xander O'Riley. Bannon Sasaki. Jackal Vern. The list of eight had been edited down to three, but she knew for a fact one of the listed three was dead, proven dead. There had been family members present at his cremation so why was Robin still researching him? A list of existing family members had been complied, Arkham Asylum security footage recorded, police investigation records dug up. Could he seriously think…

"Robin. Bannon Sasaki is _dead_," Raven said, catching the young man off guard.

He looked up at her with a mixture of guilt and mollification. He clicked the window closed and regained his composure, but Raven could feel the resentment and defiance rolling off his psyche in subtle waves, a tinge of sadness in the emotions. Regret? Regretting that she'd found out. Raven boiled.

"You've been digging around without me! You've been trying to figure out who Red X is without telling me about it! Robin, I trusted you with this!" she shouted, voice getting shrill suddenly, bitter. "I thought we were together on this? You promised! You promised me that you would tell me everything that you learned!"

His hands tensed, shoulders getting stiff. "Raven. Please leave."

"Don't you dare tell me to leave!" she shouted, several glasses in the sink exploding. "Don't tell me 'leave'! Robin, you're doing it all over again! You're making X into a Slade and if Cyborg were here he'd tell you the same thing! Just because Beast Boy and Starfire won't tell you, doesn't mean it's not happening!"

"Cyborg's not here!" the vigilante snapped suddenly, spinning around and glaring at Raven with ferocity that startled the empath. "He's not here, but you are, so now you understand everything about me and I must be off my rocker because you know me! I'm totally insane right! _I'll turn into a damn criminal at the drop of a hat!_"

Raven felt tears sting her eyes so swiftly she didn't have time to stop them. "That's not what I -,"

"BUT YOU WERE THINKING IT!"

Rage boiled in him, hostility, frustration, betrayal, and worst of all hatred. That dark, deep forbidden emotion resonated through her mind and touched on the hidden demon in her, the dark creature slumbering in her thoughts stirring at the nigglings of fellow odium. Raven felt herself tremble and spun away, yanking her hood up and over her head before the Boy Wonder could see the look of darkness that raced across her features like a rabid animal, looking for a kill. She'd never thought…never suspected that his emotions would trigger her own. Even after making mind contact with him she hadn't thought.

"Is that…what you believe…we think?" she whispered angrily, turning on the dark-haired Titan with controlled rage. "Honestly, Robin. Think! If we didn't trust you, if we didn't think you could handle it do you really think we'd have let it go this far? We want to help, but we can't do that if you won't talk to us! We're not the enemy here, Robin! We trust you, but you've got to trust us too!"

"I won't let you get hurt because of my mistake! This is different from Slade!"

"I do not agree," a new voice interceded.

The two froze and jerked around to stare at the door where two figures stood in the entry. Starfire blushed very slightly, but kept her gaze resolutely up. Her pale green eyes flashed with a newly kindled kind of fire, long scarlet hair making her strong, stubborn expression all the more fierce. Beast Boy looked apprehensive, but didn't falter as he grinned an enormous grin at the two bickering Titans. He had what looked like a DVD in his hands and a nervous shift in his feet.

"Yeah, dude. Don't take it the wrong way, but we care about yu' too much to let cha care about us too much. You're not going after X by yourself," he said candidly, brandishing the disk at Robin. "We went back to the station and we had a chat with Kitten and guess what she had to say?"

Robin and Raven exchanged looked.

"Red X really is in over his head with something. Didn't say anything about the murder, but it sounds like someone really _is_ out to get X. Someone big," Beast Boy said, moving over to the computer. He jammed the disk in and hit the play command. "Look. We found this in that creepy, bug-infested warehouse. It's a recording of a conversation between Killer Moth and some majorly creepy dude. Check it out."

The screen flickered and then a short audio recording began to play through the speakers. Beast Boy cranked the volume and a low, cavernous voice began to mutter into the Titan's living room.

" _- goes by another name doesn't he?"_ inquired the deep rating voice partway through his sentence, muted as if coming through a machine.

"_Umm…yeah. I've heard a couple dealers call him X."_ Killer Moth this time, sounding nervous.

"_Just 'X'?"_ He sounded annoyed.

"_Red X,"_ Moth corrected quickly. _"Sorry."_

"_Red X,"_ the machine voice repeated, as if trying it out. _"Tell me more about him. How long has he run in Jump City? New? Veteran? Had much contact with the Titans?"_

"_Well, if you want to know about Red X I'm the wrong guy to ask,"_ Killer Moth said, even more nervous than before. He kept pausing and starting again as if wetting his lips repeatedly. _"But I know the guy who does. A book-keeper named Peterson, covers for the smuggling at the city docking and marina. He's always going on about some young upstart thief who constantly drops by and harasses him for information, makes fun of him, ridicules him and such."_

The Titans all exchanged significant looks.

"_Then he's a younger thief?"_

A pause. _"Peterson calls him a brat, but Peterson's no blushing schoolgirl himself."_

"_Thank you."_ The man on the machine sounded very gratified. "_You've been more then helpful to me."_

_Click._

Beast Boy looked up from the screen with a wide-eyed look. "Dudes. Did you hear that? Peterson! Some guy was digging around for information on X so the guy offed him! This is total proof! He's so guilty!"

Raven didn't look so sure, for that matter neither did Robin. "I don't know. That could actually mean X had nothing to with it. If they wanted to frame X, Peterson would be a natural pick," Raven remarked drably.

"I suppose," Robin said.

"This Red X guy is totally some kind of big Syndicate/Mafia guy, I just know it! Here let me show you my diagrams!" Beast Boy chattered, running off to find his charts and doodles proving how Red X must be involved in a plot to take over the world with the help of mutant hamsters, tacos, and European intelligence. Raven took this opportunity to study Robin's pensive expression. Starfire too gazed at him with concern, wringing her hands and hoping they'd made the right choice in pursuing this.

"Umm…it also seems that the Dr. Chang was involved," Starfire said slowly. "Johnny Rancid was witness to an unidentified person releasing the bad doctor. Perhaps there is another…involved?"

"A third party?" Raven inquired.

Robin sighed heavily. "I'm going to check how Cyborg's doing. We need him back here for this as fast as possible," he said.

Raven sighed when he avoided her gaze.

-heist-

**Dialing…dialing…passcode? Accepted passcode: alpha program. **

**One moment please…**

**Buffering…**

**Line open. **

Then you've delivered it?

_Affirmative._

And you believe it will have the desired affect?

_Yes. His is mentally unstable; it will… distract him. He won't give up on proving his innocence, but he will not be so focused._

Good. Keep reminding him. I want him off balance, distracted…_weak_.

_Yes._

My associate is very interested in the thief. This little boy has more depth to him than I imagined. For all his claims to the contrary he has quite the background story.

…_Yes._

And the Titans?

_The leader has received a comm. Message from the Titan Cyborg._

And?

_He's staying in Steel City permanently. He will not be a problem. _

**Program alpha: Accessing record data…Accepted… Delete? – Affirmative. **

**Deleting…**

**End contact. **

**-heist-**

**Author's Note: **Keep reading my lovely readers and I will reveal all! Buh hahaha!


	9. Cover Story

**Cover Story**

-heist-

"_How much do you care about me, ani-chan?" she asked, voice childish and unassuming._

"_However much you think you need." He laughed: a sound crisp and almost sweet, like biting into an apple. "Why?"_

_A thoughtful pause. "I decided…it would be great if you wanted to die for me."_

_Brrrring!_

"Huh!"

Bannon came awake violently, jerking up right and gasping in horror as a piece of printer paper stuck to his face and blinded him. Half asleep and delirious with remnants of a million nightmarish telephones, it took him a couple tries to get that demonic paper off his face. Finally, he slapped the paper off. Fiery tendrils of his own hair hung in skin-tickling spikes around his cheeks and the bridge of his nose.

He blinked wide almost feline eyes into the mid-day stream of clear light. A distorted square of sun-light through his sky-light overhead, patterned weird across the kitchen counters, bright and clean in the dingy shadows of his apartment.

Bannon hunched over his open laptop and held his head between his hands a long moment, the phone ringing and ringing until it finally stopped. Hung over with his late-night activities and the sudden interruption of his day-time napping, the nocturnal felon moaned and reached for the pillow he'd dragged on the counter nearby. He wondered irritably how he'd missed the pillow because now he had the lap-top company logo squished into his forehead.

Yanking the pillow out from under a snoozing Shi-Shi (why should the cat get to sleep?) he selfishly hugged it and dropped his head onto the feathery headrest – determined to get some damn sleep before raiding WAYNE Enterprises tonight. The cat yowled in aggravation and slunk away to the corner of the counter where he coiled up to glare menacingly at his lethargic young owner. Bannon ignored that glare with almost royal efficiency, yawning loudly and shoving his face into the pillow.

_Bing_!

Ban groaned. Shi-Shi too gazed at the guilty laptop with utter disbelief, as if it had suddenly begun to tap-dance across the counter top. The alien noise of new e-mail almost sounded almost unknown in his moment of surrealism between sleep and waking. He numbly clicked the tiny blurb and a new message from CircusRunaway sprang up, the words running together in grayish little smears across the computer screen and he muttered darkly to himself, squinting at it.

_Dear Bandit13,_

_Are you sure you want to get rid of those demonic sheep? If you can sleep at night it means less time to be up and about high jacking cars. But if it will help break your addiction…just go read a damn book, you illiterate jerk. Just messing with yu. But seriously, sit on the couch and read until you can't keep your eyes open anymore. Promise you'll be dead asleep in minutes._

_-Signed CircusRunaway_

The irony of this did not escape the achy-eyed, teenager as he yawned yet again and rumpled his nest of copper hair. Smacking and punching keys at random, he spelled out a half sober kind of reply, so exhausted that he pretty much wrote the quickest thing to his foggy head. 'Quick' being a loosely used term as his thought processes at this stage of under-rest equaled something kind of like...being hammered. Hard. Like way too many shots of straight alcohol. Thus, he rambled.

_Dear Whatsyurname,_

_Thank U so much for the sleeping tips. Since yu e-mailed last night and I was busied I chose to ignore your message. So while Im sleeping suddenly, my comp makes a 'ding' sound and wakes me up to tell me that you've e-mailed me a couple tips on how 2 sleep. Wow. This must be karma for all the cars I've been jacking lately. A couple hundred actually. I guess I deserve this or something, eh, chuckles? _

_But yu wanna know some weird shit? In high school I used to run X-country a lot…so I'd sleep really well at night…and that has nothing to do with anything. I just suddenly thought about running. Like running away from the circus…what kind of lame-ass name is CircusRunaway anyhow? Makes y' sound like a damn clown and an unemployed one at that. Oh! Weirder shit! The last circus I went to was awful. There was this **huge** accident and two of the performers died during one of the acts…I'm not sure which one. Good lord, I feel sick. Later._

_-Bandit13_

He hit 'send' and buried his face in the blankets, immediately drifting off to slee…

_Brrrrring!_

Bannon twitched away from the laptop with a cringe. The phone rang again and he proceeded to glare at the device of his torment. Who called him like this anyway? He knew a grand total of five people in the whole damn city and five fifths of them wanted to throw him in jail. So who would call?

_Brrrring!_

He snatched up the phone and jammed it to his ear while reaching for the computer's volume dial. "What?" he snapped, jiggling the dial to no effect.

"Hello. Who's this?"

"Ban Mallory. Who's calling? It's the weekend. No repairs until Monday and that's only if I'm in a good mood," Ban articulated, crossing his arm over his chest and falling back into his seat, hand tucked in the crook of his other arm. "And why did you call my home phone? How'd you get this number?"

"My list," the voice answered promptly, energetically in the manner of sale-men(women). "Mr. Mallory. Could you use more money?"

Under the couch Shi-Shi's tail flicked back and forth nervously, his ears twitching at the sound of his master's short laugh. "Yeah!" he exclaimed enthusiastically, glancing at his laptop. "That would be fantastic! Can you do that for me?" Would CircusRunaway get his e-mail anytime soon? He hoped so. The mechanic felt that somehow not hearing his friend's answer would be upsetting somehow.

Meanwhile the lady on the other end sounded hopeful, launching into an elaborate script to promote her scam – err – financial plan. "Well, we can do that for you! If you just-,"

"Great! You get on that!" Ban interrupted her. "Send a hay-bale! Send a couple in fact! I'm trying to make rent. Thanks."

And he hung up. Shi-Shi voiced a loud complaint and the thief cast a look at the cat just in time to see him glide across the carpet to his conspicuously empty food dish. The young man scowled. What happened to natural predatory instincts? Shi-Shi must have missed God's memo while He handed out the rules of being an animal and whatnot. Lousy snooty cat. Can't even get his own stupid food and Ban knew for a fact several rats had made residence in his shop downstairs. One had even grown so bold as to steal his peanut butter sandwich last time he brought food down.

He got up, grumbling to himself as he padded quietly across the shag before tip-toeing over the kitchen tile, feet sticking to the cold linoleum as he pried the fridge open. He squinted into the back of the cold-box and yanked a random tuna can from the shelf. Kicking the door closed he popped the lid and crouched by the empty food bowl, shaking the tin rapidly to dislodge the cold fish. With a splat it flopped into the bottom of the dish in a grayish/pink cube.

"Reow…" said Shi-Shi reproachfully.

"Oh shutup," Bannon groaned, standing up and massaging his aching shoulders. He sat back down at the counter, coiling his arms and dropping his head on them; eyes closing. "Go catch a rat and be useful why doncha?"

He started to slip away again, almost dropping off when…

_Bing_!

-the disgustingly cheery sound stabbed him awake.

_Grrr…_ He groaned and hit the keyboard with his fist, somehow opening the e-mail and a sound byte file inside reading _From_:_D.S. anon_and a sound file. His fist against the board had already clicked it automatically and the scrolling time marker had already began to roll along the bar at the bottom of the file. He grumbled, thinking it had to be one of those irritating prank e-mails that said some something foul before detonating your computer or something, but no profanities emerged from the speakers, no pornographic script or curses against his mother and her children.

Nothing.

Only a faint shiver, a warbling string of sound that floated through circuitry into his living room. He blinked. Was that… No couldn't be. Who would send him something like that? He shoved himself upright, frowning deeply at the screen, the marker still rolling, but the sound didn't come in clearly as it should have. Shi-Shi abandoned the tuna and retreated in a flash to the couch. He growled from beneath the sofa nearby, animal eyes glittering greenly under the shadow gap.

Ban pushed away from the counter, feeling a bit disconcerted as he reached for the box he'd set on the counter the night previous. Ripping it open, he turned the silver faucet, water gushing from the spout and he jammed his head under. Cool water split at the nape of his neck, running in cold rivulets down the sides of his throat and face. He emptied the contents of the box into his hands…then into his hair.

Then sound spilled into the studio apartment, washing over the oriental furnishings and generally demolishing feng shui with the familiar warm-up scales of a violin.

He jerked, freezing at the sink, his pulse leaping like a startled animal against his ribs. The notes began to climb and he closed his eyes to protect them from the water, or so he lied to himself. He turned off the water and thoroughly saturated his red hair with his product, head bent low over the sink like he'd fallen suddenly ill. The sad, wavering notes of the song jittered through his kitchen and he found himself suddenly doubled over the sink, fingers tangled in his hair, his lips tight.

The warm-up paused…then suddenly launched into a violent staircase of jagged notes. Faster than natural human fingers moved, it seemed, the sounds leapt from the strings of the invisible instrument. The unforgettable, undeniably wicked song of dangerous style and speed: The Devil's Trill. The pride and joy of those few great violinists who dared challenge it, the song every truly amazing musician tried to defeat.

Bannon ground his teeth and yanked his dripping head from the basin, crossing the room and twisting the sound off his laptop. He slammed the computer closed with a hearty 'snap' of plastic clasps and stood there: hand over the lap-top casing, breathing harder than natural. He jerked suddenly into motion, scrolling the e-mail for clues, text, anything but only found a simple line in neat Times Roman script beneath the sound file.

**Wonderful work, Ban. **

He deleted it with prejudice.

-heist-

"Mr. Regan? Regan?"

The pretty blonde reception lady looked around earnestly. Several curious visitors in the lobby looked up, most of them graying older men with a smattering of smart looking thirty-somethings with a glint of ambition in their sharp eyes; the fresh batch of business men and board representatives here to meet with Jump's suspicious executives. In sight of new and expensive future development prospects, the branch had just recently put out a request extending over-seas and across country in hopes of gaining funding from a wealthy buyer interested in their work.

"Right here," a friendly voice said from the side hall.

The receptionist blinked as a pale young man in a sharp navy blazer and slacks stepped around the corner, a steaming cup of coffee in his hand. His shiny black briefcase looked brand new and his blue-black hair almost too dark to be real. Maybe dyed? His blue-green eyes looked oddly colored, like he wore contacts perhaps, but then why wear those stylishly tinted glasses? Probably just a trick of the light she thought, smiling at him as he moved toward her, apologizing for not hearing.

"A bit tired. Long trip from Gotham," he said with a rueful grin. "Is Mrs. Miriweather ready to see me?"

"Yes. Right this way," she said, high heels tapping on the polished floors as she turned and sashayed into the adjoining room. "Aren't you a bit…no offense, meant; I'm actually very impressed, but aren't you a bit young to be representing for Sasaki Industries?"

The young man just laughed a short lazy laugh that relaxed everyone in earshot. "Yeah, but the board of directors is convinced this is worth investigating. I'm just a go-between you know. It's really not all the glamorous, but it brings home the dough."

The woman looked wistful. "Wish mine did. Here we are. Go right on through."

As he entered a severe looking business woman in black blouse and skirt looked up sharply from an extensive file on her desk. Her expression was one of deepest suspicion and dubious formality as the unusually young man introduced himself. She extended a hand and shook with him before he took a seat in front of her. She studied him warily, almost doubting this friendly youth could possibly be the representative of Sasaki Industries. However, WAYNE Enterprises' Jump branch very much needed funding and Sasaki – who already allied with the central branch of WAYNE Enterprises – was a coveted buyer.

She'd have to be both very nice and very professional.

"So," she began, standing and coming around to the side of the desk. "What is it that you are interested in?

The young man flicked open the clasps of his briefcase. "I'm interested in the recent robbery. I flew all the way to Jump City only to hear one of its branches has been raided. I want to know what is being done to protect Sasaki's future financial investments."

The woman looked sour, but graciously complied. "Yes. Rest assured that will not be happening again. We've tightened security around our newest inventions. I personally check the vault for its safety every night at eight sharp and I _never_ miss my deadline." She looked so serious she might have just declared she'd murdered a man. "Never. Only I know the security codes to get in and of course my superiors in our Gotham branch."

The youth looked dubious still so she went on. "It's state of the art. Surely, you have a standard at Sasaki. Tell me how would you defend such a prize as our universal adaptors chip?"

He looked thoughtful. "Not that I'm an expert but…in addition to single personal access, I'd have guards patrolling round the clock, motion sensor, heat sensor and audio sensitive alarms, silent alarms and periodical laser scanning. Re-enforced vault, laser grids and security cameras outside the room at all times. Though I trust your camera angles don't record whatever code it is you use to get in or what it is exactly inside the vault because it's classified and stealing security tapes is easier than stealing the chip itself."

The woman looked amused by his thorough list of precautions and nodded daintily. "All taken care of. Do you wish to know more about the adaptor?"

Regan leaned forward, intrigued now that his company's future 'investments' seemed secured. "Yes. Your public announcement was a bit vague."

"With reason. We don't want every two-bit thief in the country flooding us," she snorted. "These two chips are proto-types in a new age of nanotechnology. Like living tissue the first chip can be amalgamated into any existing nanotech and then used to increase its adaptability, efficiency, intelligence, cooperation; you name it, it can do it. We've lovingly nicknames her Espia, meaning 'spy'. The chip in this building is the chip that controls whatever tech that its sister is inserted into. We call her Socio: 'partner' and I assure you one without the other is useless."

"Can you recover the stolen chip?" he asked sharply.

"We are seeing to it," she said shiftily. "Does Ms. Sasaki have any specific interests in this branch and its work?"

"Pardon me?" The young man seemed perplexed.

"Ms. Sasaki," she repeated impatiently. How could he not recognize who he worked for? Maybe he misunderstood. "Since she's taken over her father's company I thought she made it clear she would be dedicating herself to other endeavors outside the company. Has she changed her mind? Her father's recent death shook everyone -,"

Regan cleared his throat suddenly and pulled a smooth kind of paper from his briefcase, handing it to her with a sudden air of one distracted. "Yes. She's handed over the company's smaller works to her board of directors. I get my orders from them. Not Maia Sasaki herself. Would you mind looking over these legal documents before I go? I'll leave them with you if you'd like."

Mrs. Miriweather took them and had only just begun to read them when the young man laughed. "Oh. Excuse me. You've got one extra." He plucked the smooth, laminated one out from the bottom of the pile, forcing her to peel her fingers from the glossy finish. "I'll get back to you soon as possible. I'd like to wait it out a bit, make sure we're not making a bad investment. It's been a pleasure."

He gave a small bow that she attributed to his Asian heritage and left. Moments later a man from another firm entered the room and she forgot all about Sasaki's Industry's too-young representative and the strange look behind his tinted glasses as he said 'Maia Sasaki'.

-heist-

**Author's Note: **_Sorry for the wait, but I couldn't get this chapter to sound…right somehow. Maybe because X wasn't doing anything particularly thievish at the time, but it gave me a bloody head ache to write out. Drafted and rewrote it almost five times. My plot keeps trying to evolve into something retarded and pointless. So...hard…must maintain CHARACTER! Questions will be aswered and flames will be used for smore-making. Join me and eat smores!. _


	10. Hero Complex

**Hero Complex**

8:05 AM.

A very faint buzzing sound rippled through the dimmed hallway, but the two security guards standing at either end of the corridor dismissed it at the florescent light finally giving out and squinted around at the ceiling. The lights had flickered a moment…or they must have because a faint darkness passed, like a shadow flitting close by. A loud 'bang!' echoed up one of the halls and the two guards exchanged looks. The female officer nodded and hefted her non-lethal security laser, moving to investigate the sound at the end of the far hall.

The male guard too left the premises, circling around to investigate from the opposite side, should the culprit come around. However, the real culprit in question had hoped for this.

Red X flickered back into existence, having just teleported from the far end of the hall where he'd kicked over a trashcan to get the guards' attention. He flicked open a small black-light penlight and shone it on the keypad to the inner safe. Where the neon glow felt across the keys he could clearly see the four digits used in the pass code: four, three, zero and seven. From his research into the security files of other company's who used similar systems, he knew it had to be a four digit code, no repeating numbers.

Now for the order.

He shoved a clever but highly black-ops devise into the card slot for new data and instead began loading all possible codes, bypassing the alarm protocol meant to go off if the code was entered incorrectly. It tricked the computer into thinking the person entering had as many guesses at they wanted. The door hissed open and the thief slipped inside and the airlock closed behind him, leaving him all alone inside the vault room. As he stepped onto the floor – now devoid of all security precautions – he felt a glimmer of satisfaction. Thieves too often made the mistake of trying to beat the system when having it work for you made things so much easier.

Whistling to himself once more, the thief crossed the room to a large glowing podium where the disk floated weightlessly in midair, waiting to be taken. He felt a sharp spike of satisfaction, having pulled off one of the fastest heists he'd ever had to scrape together in under twenty-four hours. Red X plucked it out of the air and examined it briefly. He frowned. Odd…what kind of devise was this? He hefted it. No…no way!

"This is a fake!" he hissed.

Then it all hit the fan.

The airlock door hissed open and a foursome of familiar teenagers walked, flew or glided in depended on preference. Red X didn't feel all too surprised, he'd pretty much expected the Goody-Goody Brigade to get here at some point, but the fact they had him pinned in the vault didn't make him feel very smart by many means. Their fearless leader stepped forward and thrust an accusatory finger at the obviously guilty thief, who felt a stab of irritation. _Naturally_ they were here because _naturally_ all this was Robin's fault because everything that went wrong in X's life was _naturally_ to be blamed on Robin because that's how the world _naturally_ worked.

"You're caught," he stated.

"Not _yet_," X quipped playfully.

"Titans GO!" Robin roared.

Raven and Starfire got there first; Raven leading the charge she tore several glowing black pieces of paneling from the walls. Red X took off running to meet them half way xinothium coursing through him, making him far bolder than healthy for a criminal facing two incoming Titans. Raven hurled the panels at him but they moved so slowly, so slowly in comparison to a hyper-active cat-burglar with a super-suit that the nimble criminal leaped over the first, bounced off the second and cart-wheeled through the air straight into the flying sorceress.

"Alley-oop!"

X leapfrogged a very pissed-off Raven, slapping a handful of red goo in her hair. She uttered bestial snarl, her fingers getting stuck in the mess the moment she tried to touch it, capturing her hands. Starfire squealed as Red X flew over Raven and landed squarely on the extraterrestrial's slender back.

"Whoops! Sorry, love!" X said cheerfully, obviously delighted to have an excuse to sit on the girl.

"Remove your weight from my person!" she cried, groping blindly over her shoulder, at the thief. "I cannot…You are throwing off my - Cease and desist!"

Red X ignored her protests, covering her eyes with his hands, shouting: "Peek-a-boo!"

"Ahh! I cannot maneuver safely if I cannot see!" she cried, swerving and diving dangerously as a drunken humming bird through the air. He hung on tightly, arms looping her shoulder as he laughed maniacally. He didn't stop laughing, even while she veered and swerved. "Remove your hands, despicable fiend! I will surely collide with – _Ohh_! X'hal!"

The redhead careened into the far will like a missile, Red only just barely tearing himself off her speeding form and dive rolling to safety. The stunned girl slumped to the floor, hazily mumbling something that sounded distinctly like 'zorkaberry'. _One down, three to go,_ he thought, suddenly glad Cyborg had decided to skip town. Taking on the Titans in a giant warehouse with room to move was one thing; taking them on in close quarters en masse was entirely another deal.

"Get away from her!" a voice snarled and quite suddenly Red X was head butted mercilessly into a wall by a stampeding mountain goat.

"Gah!" he cried as he bashed into the wall and fell over.

Now, if he hadn't known that the Teen Titans had a shape-shifting changeling on the team, this might have come as a real shocker. Maybe a bit odd… As it was, getting run over by a goat was just an added hazard of having the Titans as enemies. Beast Goat snorted and pawed the floor, lowering that knobby – very knobby – head for another go at the bruised felon. Feeling very achy and not at all inclined to get the goat-version quarterback sack a second time, he spread his hand and slapped the palm against the floor, red light spitting from the point of contact.

Beast Boy wisely took to the air as a red streak shot from his hand and ripped the floor apart where the changeling stood. X hurled a couple experimental shuriken at the buzzing green humming bird but abandoned it as a lost cause. He spun around as Robin joined the fray, leaping at the unsuspecting X with a viscous left hook that the masked felon narrowly avoided, bobbing and weaving, feet flying across the floor as he danced back, retreating from the violent onslaught.

"How did you…get in here?" Robin snarled between punches. "Only one person…knows the code."

"Two," he laughed, side-stepping a well aimed kick to his forehead.

He ducked a sweeping roundhouse and grabbed Robin's foot and lunging back with it. They toppled together, Robin unable to keep footing with X's full weight yanking him down and X unable to stay standing with Robin's weight giving way. He hit the floor on his back and slid a couple feet before lunging up and hauling ass toward the open door. However his escape was foiled!

He skidded to stop short at the sight of a very angry Raven blocking his path to freedom. The moment's hesitation cost him his precious Robin-free moments and the irritated Boy Wonder was up again.

_Whizz! Whizz! Zing!_ Projectile explosives if he ever heard them. X bounded away as several of Robin's energy disks exploded by his foot, jumping into the air, rebounding off the wall and – to his amusement – grabbing the passing seagull Beast Boy out of the air with a strangled 'wark!' He flipped through the air and landed on the podium, the large green bird clenched comically in his fist.

"Stupid bird," he said cheerfully, rattling the poor changeling like a maraca.

"Let him go, X!" Robin of course.

"Azarath! Metrion! Zinthos!" Raven…oh crap…

Raven's eyes flashed with dangerous white energy and whorls of power swirled up around her slender body, lashing out in tongues of sable fire, long and razor sharp. X released the seagull in a plume of green feather and swept his arm up. A crimson X sprang from his forearm just in time to spit sparks, his arm jarring as he managed a sloppy block. But the force of it smashed him up against the far wall the same time a hot trail of pain sliced up his flank. Completely winded and near-passing out from the mini detonation through his ribs, he slumped to the floor, gritting his teeth.

Raven's eyes widened at the sight of the damage she'd inflicted and for a moment she looked – almost – sorry. Comical really since she still had her fingers knotted in her own gooey hair. He barely dove away from Robin's lashing bow-staff, the long weapon striking sparks from the floor as the thief lurched to his feet, clutching his side. Hot liquid warmth spread under his fingers and X quickly forced his mind from the injury.

Raven tore her fingers finally free from her hair, looking more than willing to give him a matching wound for his left side.

"Ow," X said pointedly.

Raven's reply was charmingly nasty. "Suck it up, tough guy."

Robin smirked, whirling his staff into an 'I'm about to kick your ass' position and narrowing his masked eyes. Had he seen the wound? Probably not, it'd happened so damn fast…

"End of the line, X. You're going to pay for what you've done." Red X couldn't know for sure, but he thought that the Titan looked disappointed somehow. Maybe he'd wanted this to end without blood shed or catch him solo, either way the look vanished too fast for the thief to think much on it. "Now hand over the disks. No more running."

He couldn't resist. "Ease up, chuckles."

"No. Why are you doing this?" Robin snarled, lip curling in a wolfish expression.

X tilted his head and waved his hand loftily at the superhero. "I'll let you in on my awesome plans _after_ I catch the bad guy."

"Newsflash. You _are_ the bad guy."

"Then this is about getting back at the good guys, isn't it?"

"Cocky bastard."

"Goody-two shoes."

Raven broke in before this scathing conversation could get any farther. "Putting other criminals in jail won't buy you special privileges, you know."

X rolled his eyes at her. "Duh."

"Then why are you playing the hero? That's the second time so far," Robin said dryly.

"Rob." Red X balled his hand behind his back, air in his fingers beginning to glow, hum and solidify. "You need to take chill pill, seriously."

And he hurled a giant, flaming ball of xinothium energy at the Titans. Raven shielded them like X had hoped and he ran right at them red light gathering at his finger tips, pain making his movements slower, excruciating, but he'd just have to make due. The shield dropped just as X reappeared and he slammed his foot into Raven's head. She screamed and went down under him; skull banging against the floor as he fell on top of her, same as the alien.

_Dizzy. _

Red X swayed dangerously, clutching his head. _I'm dizzy…I'm losing blood._

The suit been slit neatly open alone his right flank. Warm wetness spread down his side like an unpleasant second skin and the thief glowered at the remaining Titan standing between him and escape. Beast Boy lay moaning and human again on the floor by the podium, out of commission. Starfire: still unconscious and mumbling against the adjacent wall, elegant auburn hair obscuring her face. Raven lay beneath X's outspread hands and knees, thin arms at odd angles, thick, velveteen cowl pooled about his wrist.

Blood glistened in the folds.

His suit dripped the crimson liquid, dark blood splattered the floor by his knee with a loud, liquid, slapping sound on the cold metal flooring. Something solid and icy to the touch suddenly settled against his shoulder then shoved him up onto his knees. The world drained away as X smirked inappropriately into the blurry lines of Robin's dark face.

The Titan's bow-staff rested against his right collarbone, one good flick from Robin's expertly wielded weapon could snap the bone like a twig. But Robin…didn't take into consideration this one fact; a fact that gave the thief optimism to perhaps prevail despite even a broken collarbone – painful as that was – and get away.

X was left handed.

Then something cool, delicate and familiar caught his right wrist suddenly. Robin and Red X both froze as Raven abruptly took the thief's hand lightly between her own pale fingers. A flash flood: snapshots of a dusty basement, healing hands gently (and not so gently) cleansing the pain away; slipping the glove from his hand… He found himself staring, an audience in his own body as she did so once more.

He shivered again as the pads of her finger found his own, cold, not unpleasant prickles running down his spine. Her slim artisan fingers traced the lines of his index finger and thumb, sending a strange shivery jolt up his arm, making his skin prickle…that strange…almost enjoyable kiss of cool needles under the flesh and her digits found the thin, pink network of scars etched into the callused tips of his fingers.

Her lips moved. Dead stop. Time held its breath and then…

"Robin!" Beast Boy had recovered. Starfire shot over the thief's head and joined the Titan leader, Beast Boy appearing from thin air by his head, probably an insect of some sort. This creeped the burglar out for some inexplicable reason and he twitched. _Blame it on the blood-loss_, he thought dizzily to himself. _And most of all blame it on Robin. _

"Surrender!" Starfire said, hand glowing menacingly. "There is no escape! Do not make us harm you!"

Beast Boy bared unusually sharp incisors. "But we totally _will, _you freak-o!"

X snatched his glove away from the half-conscious sorceress and rolled off her, jamming his hand back into it. Her lips had formed the damning word, but nothing he could do about it now, not that his thickening senses could have devised a clever escape anyway. He backed by instinct, his vision slipping, one hand tight against the neat slit in his side. Heat, blood, his hips hit the podium behind him and he nearly collapsed against it.

"Give it up, X. You're about to pass out," stated Robin obviously. He held up a hand disarmingly. "I don't want to fight you like this."

X made a face. "Oh how 'effing _noble_ of you."

Starfire began to throw a starbolt but the Boy Wonder shook his head warningly, obviously he didn't think Red X could withstand a solid starbolt hit in his condition. _Lousy, righteous, good-for-nothing, hero complex…_ The thief held up a sable gloved arm and grinned jaggedly behind his grim reaper façade. His name-sake weapons unsheathed themselves from the catches under the battle suit, glittering red in the florescent lighting. Robin's eyes narrowed at the familiar armor configuration and spun his staff into a new stance.

He moved forward to engage the felon.

_Come on Boy Wonder_, X thought recklessly, blood-loss making him stupider by the minute. He could feel his IQ dropping. _You want to dance around? Fine._ He inclined his head, a quick 'come hither' jerk and the vigilante complied. Robin attacked again, this time keeping himself out of striking distance, the unforgiving metal of his weapon striking quick-silver fast.

X defected blow after blow, reaction times slowing with every strike. The metal spat angry sparks from his arm guards, Robin's attacks growing blurry and melting into one giant smear of movement. By pure luck he smacked the Titan's weapon aside and landed a hard spinning kick across his shoulder, throwing the boy to the floor. But tenacious as always, Robin leapt back to his feet with a hiss of pain and his bow-staff came around too fast for the dazed cat-burglar. The strike crashed into his shields and shot up his arms like a numbing agent as one of the guards shattered.

_Ow. That hurt, _the thief thought densely.

The bow-staff cracked against his forearm, circuits sputtering red sparks, drawing a short cry of pain from the thief. The sheer force of the hit knocked him into a wall; he rebounded off the surface and fell to a crouch, bracing himself with his good hand. He hugged his injured arm against his heaving chest, feeling the thrum of his heart against his sternum as Robin whirled his staff into the ready position. His breath came hard, his body aching as he narrowed his eyes at the similarly panting hero.

"You're beat, X," gasped Robin, a bead of sweat falling from his chin. "You're not trained like me and you're hurt. You can't win."

"Oh, so I can't fight, but I'm capable of murder," Red X said sarcastically. "Oooh, that's some excellent dot-to-dot sleuthing, that is."

"Robin? Please can we not -," Starfire began tentatively, but Robin ignored her.

"Who taught you to fight?" Robin demanded suddenly. "It's familiar."

X laughed, wincing as it sent stabs of pain through his side. "I'll bet it is. You see it every time I kick your ass," he said sniggering madly, following his naturally annoying instincts. Suddenly everything about this, the fake disk, the fight, Robin's stupid nobility, Raven with her hair in red clumps, riding Starfire like a bronco…it was all just hilarious. "Once I've cleared my good name, I'll give you free lessons or something, kiddo."

Robin rolled his eyes…or at least X thought so. Kinda hard to tell you know, but for a moment the Titan actually cracked the smallest of grins. But he bit it back, as if he just remembered that Red X wasn't supposed to be funny and got serious again.

"Don't lecture me on how to do my job, X. I've had enough of villains trying to do that."

"Uh huh. Slade got you too?"

He'd never been much good at subtlety.

Robin closed the distance between then in one, long, stride and slammed his knee into Red's diaphragm, dropping the thief to the floor and whacking the burglar a stunning blow to the back of the head. X's cheek struck the floor with enough force to knock the thief out of reality for a moment, unconsciousness spinning up to meet him before adrenaline pulled him out of it.

Robin's rabid scream in reply to the question went unheard over the ringing of the bells in his brain. Strange fluttering poker cards kept dancing in Red X's eyes as the Robin seized the front of X's suit and hurled him bodily against the wall, ramming him against the barrier and holding him there. His forearm crushed the felon's windpipe, his knuckles bruising the dip under his throat.

"What do you mean?" Robin bellowed.

"Robin! Dude! You're going to kill him!" Beast Boy yelped.

"He's injured!" Starfire cried.

The furious Titan ignored them.

"What do you mean '_you too?_'"

"You know exactly what I mean," the thief whispered raggedly. The two teenagers were so close, their faces so near only Robin heard the second part of Red's message. "You know what he did to us both…"

_Bam!_ X's boot introduced itself to the Teen Titan's belly.

Robin staggered back, clutching his bow-staff, doubled over himself in familiar agony. Red X didn't hesitate because he knew the price of letting Robin get his balance back and attacked, he darted forward faster than even Robin could have done, grabbed the Titan's head and threw the boy's face into his incoming knee. The sickening 'thunk!' of forehead meeting patella sent a shudder down the thief's spine and a momentary flash of bronze and black, Slade kicking him mercilessly in the head while he was down.

Starfire hurled a starbolt, but X was ready for this. He swung with his remaining arm guard and deflected it right the roaring Bengal tiger. It exploded in the unfortunate creature's face and a smoking – but human – Beast Boy flew out of the residual smoke, smacking the floor and rolling awkwardly for a couple yards.

"Beast Boy!" she cried, horrified.

"Get X!" chorused her two male teammates.

The Tameranian girl turned her attention back upon the bleeding thief, all former pretenses of sympathy for the wounded felon long since past. She raise glowing hands and began to attack, whipping starbolts fast as her alien hands could form them at X. He darted and dodged the first three and knocked the four back at her before evading the fifth and sixth. The fourth bolt shot back at the girl who swerved to avoid it, but had to duck again as a red xinothium blast zipped by her shoulder.

Her green eyes grew round.

Red X hefted a small, glowing baseball of crimson energy and hurled it at her roaring, "Fire in the hole!"

It shot up toward her but she ducked it and it sailed harmlessly over her. She turned her attention quickly back to X, should he thrown another. Unfortunately, she didn't expect that small red orb to _explode_…which it did. _KABOOM_! The blast of red light engulfed the girl with a deafening bang and the alien shot out of the smoke, rocketing toward the floor with punishing force…

But Red X had already begun to sprint toward her and he dove, sliding baseball style and catching her before she cracked her neck. _Safe!_ he cheered silently, leaving a thick, smear of dark red on the well mopped floor behind him. Then he dumped her on the ground, good deed done, and shot another red grenade at the door. It blasted the airlock out of it frame, knocking the door into the hall as a twisted hunk of smoking metal. Raven had awoken, groaning and muttering her incantation to no affect. _Concussion_, X decided.

Robin growled, still on the ground some yards in front of the thief, recovering quickly through sheer spite. Red ripped the fake disk out of his belt and just to be as aggravating as possible chucked it at Robin's head as he ran by. It bounced off the back of his gel-styled noggin and X ran past him blowing a loud raspberry at the Titan.

"What are you _doing_?" Robin screamed. "You're insane!"

Beast Boy looked stunned. "Dude! What's his damage?"

"Ugh…finbar…" Poor Starfire.

-heist-

**Author's Note: **Umm…yes, our favorite thief went a bit over the edge toward the end of the fight, but blood loss does funny things to people like Red. Besides I thought it was kinda funny and the Titans did wound X pretty badly so you can't say that X got off easy. They had a bunch of killer hits, but Robin chose to be nice and not beat him senseless. Silly Titans.


	11. Circus Clowns

**Circus Clowns**

-heist-

"Fake?" Robin didn't look amused as Beast Boy snatched away the fractured disk and held it up to the like for professional inspection. The changeling looked perplexed as he prodded the thing with a bandaged finger. "It's fake? Red X did all that for a fake disk? What a jerk! If we'd known that we'd have just let him make off with the darn thing. How come the museum didn't tell us they had a stupid decoy?"

Raven jerked her head out of the sink's basin, Starfire at her back with professional hair-care fingers coaxing red goo from her tresses. "Because," she said frostily. "They didn't. Someone got to that disk before Red X even knew it existed –_and_ went through a good deal of trouble to place a decent counterfeit. Good enough to fool even the security director who checked in every night. We wouldn't have known it from the real deal if Red X hadn't chucked it at Robin's head."

The Boy Wonder slanted her an unpleasant look as he twitched the disk back from Beast Boy and she made a show of ignoring him. At her back, Starfire fretted over the girl's tangled mauve hair, looking downright aggrieved.

"Ooh! Hold still friend Raven or I will have to pull your hair from the root. Robin, is there not a solvent for this obdurate muck?"

He peered at the two girls as if he'd never quite seen anything like them before. Raven gave him a very hard stare. The white of the teenager's mask narrowed and Beast Boy tried to make himself small enough to hide behind his tofu burger…failing naturally, but he didn't want to get caught in this battle of the behemoths. The changeling glanced to Starfire whom also looked unnerved by the thickness of tension hanging between their leader and sorceress.

"I'm afraid Red X has adding something to the mix. I haven't the faintest notion how to dissolve it," he said eloquently. His gaze never left Raven's and he leaned back in his chair, gazing at her expectantly.

The sticky heroine looked momentarily appalled, as if punched below the belt. A beat passed and she recovered ungracefully from the underlying insult. "Well I think red's my color!" she hissed from the sink, hunched there like some kind of wicked goblin, baring her teeth. He jerked her fierce stare to Starfire. "Don't you think red's my color?"

Pinned. The Tameranian proceeded to tie her tongue in knots formulating a reply to adequately satisfy both Raven and Robin, sputtering many-a 'err's, 'ooh's, and 'uh's before Beast Boy made a choking gesture. Starfire's gaze traveled slowly to the bottle of soap on the counter…then by some means unknown to man she made a gigantic show of crying, "Well, I'm afraid I don't really –" Then swung her arm out by 'accident' and tipped it off the table. "Oh goodness! I'll get that!"

She dove after it and didn't resurface for a while. Robin chose this distraction to dive back into the business at hand.

"Someone else is involved with all of this. Someone very well connected to have fooled the owners so far ahead of time," Robin said carefully, voice measured as he watched Starfire root around after the elusive dish-soap. She seemed to be missing it repeatedly, green eyes skipping over it somehow as she scurried about on the tile. Beast Boy looked jealous, hiding behind his burger. "It looks like someone is pulling strings. A third party as we suspected, though we can't rule out Red X himself switched the disks to put us off his trail. But we'll have to be more alert to the possibilities."

"These mysterious around the X grow ever more perplexing," agreed Starfire worriedly, finally discovering the soap and standing up. "I am not sure…but to me X seemed afraid tonight. He seemed to be shocked and uncertain. Like a wild creature cornered. He never attacked us so recklessly as he did tonight."

"Yeah," Beast Boy added on, looking earnestly to Starfire. "That guy went bonkers. He was using every trick in the book after Raven hit him."

Robin glanced at the girl in question. "Yes. He did…"

Raven skittered a brief, contemptuous glance his way, but returned her gaze masterfully to the wall. A nonverbal snub. Robin gritted his teeth and looked away from her, a small part of him squirming and squeaking out something like, 'We Don't need this right now! Not with Cyborg gone!' but it got lost in translation somehow. Raven glanced at him again, but he turned his gaze pointedly back to his computer.

Each Titan member had returned home that night with a few more injuries to show than they thought prudent for a four-on-one fight. Beast Boy bruised and a bit charred about the edges, Starfire only mildly battered, being of superior strength and resilience, Raven with a quickly healing concussion (magic was useful, no?) and Robin aching through the belly and forehead. But than again this fight had been off kilter. Everything about it had been skewed. With Cyborg gone no one could deny a certain sense of uncertainty in their fighting tonight; as if some of the power had been stolen from their punch, some edge from their focus as it were. They were all off and it showed.

Raven over compensated for the lack of power by attacking more harshly. This dealt X a dangerous blow, made him panic and act out of sync with the cocky, collected Red X they were so accustomed to. The thief had been overwhelmed by their collective assault, but in the end the tension of his wound make him shoot off his mouth more freely and it had earned him a disjointed split-second to make his get away. Raven must have regretted her move, she was smart enough to see it, and felt a spark of annoyance toward herself. However, Robin's failure as a leader to put aside emotion at a critical moment…

Well, it made her less inclined to trust him with information gained. They were at odds now. Red X was making everything more complicated than need be.

"He was scared," Raven said suddenly to break Beast Boy's background rant about 'crazy ninja stuff'. She closed her eyes as Starfire combed the last of the ooze from her hair. She assumed a familiar stance, eyes closed, contemplating the skull-faced visage of Red X, most likely. "He was scared enough to use all that xinothium during the fight and then he burned excessive amounts to get away from us after he'd fled. He wasn't the one who planted the decoy. Someone else did. I'm certain."

Beast Boy snorted. "And we all know how intuitions about Red X turn out. Painfully. Did you see these bruises?"

"Not through your fur. Now can we try to figure out our next move?" Raven asked while toweling her head dry. "Red X is hurt. Badly from what I can tell and that will buy us at least tonight and tomorrow. Maybe even tomorrow night if he's no good with injuries. The hospitals are on the lookout for deep lacerations along the ribs so he won't go there if he's smart."

Robin stood to his feet and paced a bit, dismissing all personal worries for the moment even as they all scampered mightily about his knees, squawking for attention. Cyborg, Raven, Red X's cryptic words quoting all the way back to the Christmas shenanigans…What was this thief playing at here, if anything at all? What could he possibly know of Slade? No. Not right now. X.

"What's X's next move," he asked aloud, glancing at his remaining team who watched him hopefully. "If Raven's right –," He stopped here as if to imply something but it flashed by too quickly to mean anything for certain. "–then Red X has been out maneuvered by someone and if that's true then we could be looking at a whole new situation. We don't know who's hassling him or why, or if it has anything to do with Peterson's murder. Red X will try one of two things: Run…or attack."

The others exchanged looks.

"The Red X…he will not back down," Starfire said slowly. "He seems to think…he can prove himself _innocent_."

-heist-

"Clever bastard, eh?"

Bannon kicked his heel against the side of the stone pedestal, winding white medical tape around his slashed side and wincing as sloppy, self-inflicted stitches strained unhappily at the pressure. He spoke through tightly clenched teeth as he tore the final strip from the roll and smoothed it down over the thick swath of gauze. The Titans, he hoped, would never think to look here for him because if they did they wouldn't technically catch him with his pants down, but from the belt up he was baring a bit of skin.

Including his face.

He shivered a little in the cool air of the cave's inner chamber where air breathed in only through the crack in the ceiling and the long winding tunnel that slithered down from the surface to the belly of stone. The Red X suit nested, folded and quiet in the bottom of a green denim shoulder bag Bannon had procured from an open storefront. Various bright shopping bags of unspecified origin stood like empty sentinels about the stone around his feet.

The thief sighed, grunting slightly as he wormed back into his shirt and pulled a name-brand sweatshirt over his tussled head. He paused; frowning a moment, then reached behind the hood and yanked a price tag off the seams. He tossed it in the growing pile of stickers beside Terra's petrified boot, stickers reading 'Medium', 'Large', '$50.99' and other conspicuous things for a teenager who rarely carried a wallet. Who didn't have one presently.

He rubbed the uneven line of stitching, like brail through the tape and gauze over his skin, like he could read some obscure message from the barely wrapped wound along his ribs. Bannon knew what it felt like to be outwitted, outdone or out matched. It didn't happen often but when it did it hurt. He didn't care to forget easily and redo old mistakes, but he felt like he'd done all this before. The ache in his side told him somewhere, somehow, he'd forgotten something and it was coming back to bite him in the ass.

"Blockbuster…" he muttered, leaning his chin into his cupped palms, propping his elbow on his thighs. "He's no Slade, but he's starting to work my nerves." It was impossible to tell whether he spoke to the air or to Terra. "I don't like that he's sending other people to do his work. That he's gathering information on me. Slade was enough. Frankly I don't need another round of this mental, acid-trip psycho-babble."

He paused thoughtfully.

"Or maybe, I'm the one talking psycho-babble…" he mused. "Either way, he's starting to tail my movements closer than I'd like."

Terra didn't have much to say on the subject, preoccupied with whatever infinite secret lay in the stars that peeked through the crevasse overhead. Bannon chewed over the night's proceedings, analyzing it. Then he turned over the previous night's action and did the same for them. He listed quietly the facts, stringing them like silent beads on a thread.

"Blockbuster is angry with me. He doesn't know who I am yet, though. That's good. But he frames me for murder and suddenly starts stealing from WAYNE Enterprises." He paused again to let the beads lie, sparkling in his mind's necklace. "So he's taking highly black ops encryption breakers, one piece at a time. Why? If Blockbuster could steal the second chip, Socio, so far in advance without so much a blink from security then how is it he sends two-bit thieves like Jinx and Gizmo to steal Espia?"

It didn't make much sense. Sense is something he expected Bloclbuster to make as the man had already proved himself a genius in all things criminal. No. He wanted someone to catch Jinx and Gizmo. Why else send them in there like sheep to the slaughter? But who? Who was Blockbuster luring? The Titans?

"Or me?" he said quietly. "And better yet, who's feeding him his information? How does he know so much about me?"

Terra remained thoughtfully silent. Bannon glanced up at her with a despairing kind of grin. "Don't suppose you could step down from there and give a guy a hand?"

'_Fraid not._

-heist-

It was blinking. The 'new mail' icon flashed hyperactively in the corner, waving to get his attention. Robin regarded it was a detached sense of interest, wondering quietly how he could possibly answer witty banter from Bandit right now. He could hardly think of clever things to simulate conversation with an empty soup cup. His head ached from the blow delivered by Red X's knee and his mind swirled like a snow-globe, a million bits and pieces randomly falling. He had to anticipate Red X a second time because he'd let his emotion get the better of him at WAYNE Enterprises.

He wondered vaguely if Bruce was going to be hearing about this. He shuddered at the thought and prayed that it would go unmentioned. Nevertheless, he'd gone to Mrs. Miriweather, the security director, and demanded more details on the nature of the two stolen disks. She'd promised to send him the full schematic design. Security protocols didn't apply now that both disks had been stolen. Red X having one disk and some third party having long since stolen the other.

The Titan leader leaned back in his seat, propping his chin in his hand and gazing without seeing at the flashing screen. Everything fell like raindrops, all hitting him at once, drenching him from head to toe in unanswered questions. The longer he sat, contemplating, the more and more he felt like a drowned cat and less like a crime-fighter.

Was Red X working alone? Who was this third party? _Was_ there a third party? _Did Raven know something about Red X that he didn't?_ Perhaps Red X was trying to thrown them of his trail with the fake disk? Was he that clever? Why steal disks? What did they have to do with a dead book-keeper at the marina? _Raven knew something! _Why didn't X leave Jump? Why hang around and furthermore, who's side was he really on? He stole from the Hive, WAYNE, Soto, private dealers, other criminals; hadn't Doctor Light said something during their last fight about some 'Halloween costume-freak' stealing his power generator as a quote 'night-light'? _And why did Cyborg want to pick up and leave anyway!_

He groaned and massaged his stinging eyes before hitting the 'Check Mail' option.

The Commissioner had e-mail saying that Kitten and Killer Moth had admitted to trying to destroy the city with earthworms and Kitten had let slip something about a benefactor interested in her father's work, but Moth had shut her up. They were digging into it and further interrogation had revealed little, but they were hoping to –

Robin stopped reading it and scrolled to the next one.

Miriweather had sent in those the design and details for the two disks. The first one, Espia, was the outlet chip as it were. It was the disk that physically joined the structure of other nanotech, merging with their technologies and aligning itself with their system matrix. Apparently, the nature of the disk was black ops and open market only to the military as a means of technological espionage. Extremely sensitive and utterly compatible, it would merge with any nanotech directly exposed to it. This was the disk that Red X had.

The second disk, Socio, was the remote control. Inserted into a computer it would provide an advanced control layout that provided a link to the infiltrated system, thus allowing the owner to control that system depending on its nature. This disk lay in unknown hands and that worried Robin more than Red X's involvement with the first chip.

"Great…any advanced security system in the world will be and open book," he sighed at length.

He closed the entry and scanned the remainder of the in-box. Near the bottom a Subject header read: Homeless Clown. Obviously Bandit's sticky fingers at work on this one, he thought ruefully, clicking on the link and waiting as the dialogue box sprang from the void. Haphazard words bled onto the screen and he casually skimmed the sleepy complaint about being woken up, mocking his screen-name, etc. He must have been exhausted this was more of a rant than anything coher –

He stopped dead.

His body floated there, unmoving for a moment of exquisite horror.

Then he jerked forward in his seat and hunched over the keyboard, eyes running along the sloppy grammar and misspellings. His fingers coiled at the edge of the desk, gloves making faint groans of strained material. The white of his eye-mask narrowed and widened in reaction to the individual words, as if drawing meaning from each one. He read this four times:

**Fr: **Bandit13 CircusRunaway Whatsyurname, 

_Thank U so much for the sleeping tips. Since yu e-mailed last night and I was busied I chose to ignore your message. So while Im sleeping suddenly, my comp makes a 'ding' sound and wakes me up to tell me that you've e-mailed me a couple tips on how 2 sleep. Wow. This must be karma for all the cars I've been jacking lately. A couple hundred actually. I guess I deserve this or something, eh, chuckles? _

_But yu wanna know some weird shit? In high school I used to run X-country a lot…so I'd sleep really well at night…and that has nothing to do with anything. I just suddenly thought about running. Like running away from the circus…what kind of lame-ass name is CircusRunaway anyhow? Makes y' sound like a damn clown and an unemployed one at that. Oh! Weirder shit! The last circus I went to was awful. There was this **huge** accident and two of the performers died during one of the acts…I'm not sure which one. Good lord, I feel sick. Later._

_-Bandit13_

**Reply Fr: **CircusRunaway Bandit13

_What was the name of the circus?_

_-CircusRunaway_

-heist-

**Author's Note: **_Apology for the long hiatus, but the Christmas season brought with it no friendly holiday inspiration. But I've got my plotline back and I'm ready to get back on track. Joy! For the few of my loyal die-hard fans still reading my psychotic story, I hope you liked my shaky hand at nervous breakdowns. The mechanics of this story are more difficult to do than I thought they would be. Neh. That's what you get for trying to be realistic. Ja n e! _


	12. Another Terra

**Another Terra**

Raven needed tea.

It was a simple equation, a nonchalant cause and effect that even a small child could understand. At this point, she thought it a bit presumptuous of Robin to ask her a mild, "Where are you going?" when she so clearly meant to take a nice thick book, visit her favorite, quiet café and read until the sight of the other Titan's face didn't make her want to unleash wrath on things. Excluding her frustrations with Red X, her mental exhaustion, Beast Boy's jokes, Starfire's cooking and once again, excluding Cyborg's sudden desire to lead a team on his own, the sorceress found herself still hip-deep in wanton and rampant emotion.

Mostly violent emotions… directed at Robin.

The young woman departed the tower despite Robin's protests against her leaving alone. She merely turned to him with a bland expression and replied, "I'll start respecting you as a leader when you start acting like one again. Until then…I'm going to find some peace and quiet." Then she left.

Two hours later the teenager twirled a strand of mauve hair between her finger tips like a woman spinning wool into thread, the motion a reflexive, an anxious reflection of her internal workings. She felt almost guilty for leaving, but how could remaining help? She could not think clearly amid the clashing energies of her teammates and the obvious aversion Robin displayed for her. Part of her, a small, childish portion felt a sharp sting at the Boy Wonder's rejection…but the rest of her stifled the complaints.

Here at least the quiet murmur of coffee house activity warmed Raven's auditory senses like a comfort doughnut and a blankie to an abused child. The scent of mocha and the mild flavor of herbal tea helped sooth and rinse away the acrid tang of bitterness toward her teammates, leaving her – for a time – content with the passing of hours.

She sat at a comfortable corner of the lounge, enjoying a good book and better atmosphere. The clicking of lap-tops reminded her distantly of Robin's obsessive time at the console at home, but she dismissed it from her mind. Her book. She just wanted to read her book in peace and forget all about the fraying life-lines that tied the Titans together as a whole. Book…yes. No Red X, no Robin, no murder and indecipherable mysteries to solve, just her book and all the wonderful text within.

To bad she hadn't really read a word of it.

Raven sighed and set the tome aside, cradling her tea with two hands and gazing at the sparse company scattered about the tiny room. A couple business men and one female college type studiously working at their laptops. A bored waitress glided about the empty tables, wiping up coffee stains that didn't exist, straightening and unstraightening various chairs that looked too aligned somehow. Raven felt herself relaxing at the sight of menial human life, moving and fidgeting restlessly around her. It gave her hope to see tedious, unfettered activity because it meant that the world didn't need to rush around in a frantic haze.

However…the lack of focused activity provided much lee-way for idle thoughts to wander in.

Red X…the thief. The murderer. Her paradox.

Raven stirred her tea idly as she considered the morbid image of the darkly garbed thief. A face like the Grim Reaper and a mouth sharper than an irate demon, she honestly pondered why he still failed to arouse thought of fear or odium within her. Maybe because she knew true evil? In comparison to the horrors she knew, Red X seemed little more than an impudent child, stealing cookies and sticking out his tongue. He seemed utterly juvenile…brilliant, dangerous, even a force to be reckoned with but juvenile. The girl tapped her spoon lightly against the edge of her saucer, placing it alongside the cup.

The bell over the doorway jangled. Raven glanced across the café just as a trendy looking teen in jeans and sweatshirt crossed the room. She took another sip of her herbal tea and mulled over last night's events. The waitress at the counter smiled politely, taking an order for a hot chocolate and dipping away to find whipping cream in the back room.

Her eyes wandered back to the teenager ordering the hot cocoa, his hair dark and disheveled, from this angle he looked startlingly like Robin in civilian clothes. He seemed to sense an audience and glanced over his shoulder, eyes hidden behind tinted blue sun-glasses and he seemed startled by her attentions, a potential smile appearing at the edges of his mouth. He looked away quickly though, probably embarrassed to hold eyes with the local heroine and dark mage. Once again, so much like their stubborn team leader that she felt herself almost unsettled. Robin. Her thoughts turned back to the Boy Wonder.

She could not allow this to go on. This Red X obsession, this unhealthy fixation that drove sense from his mind made his most valuable asset he greatest weakness. His focus, power of will and indomitable determination that would hear no reason other than his own, it made him stronger than any of them despite having no powers to speak of. He would blindly turn his back on them and pursue his imaginary Slade until one of them – the Slade, or Robin was destroyed.

She felt part of her shudder, an icy kind of terror that she considered only when face with grave danger to her teammates. She tried to help him, be his partner in the hunt, but he wouldn't accept someone else within the house of mirrors that was his mind. She could help him by assisting in his hunt, she had to intervene whether he liked it or not. Whether he knew it or not.

She had to stop Red X…discover some kind of tangible evidence, some kind of unwavering proof besides her gut instinct. Her gut instinct had once told her a Titan would turn on them and she ignored it in favor of Robin's judgment, of Beast Boy's judgment and it had nearly killed them all.

It had certainly broken one of them, shattered something precious, intangible as a whisper. Beast Boy…Did he ever realize that through mere touch Raven could feel the gut-wrenching sobs? That she knew how deeply the betrayal went? Weeping like a child late into the night and clutching his stomach, heartache so acute he ran to toilet to puke, blocking out the nightmares with laughter and jest. If she could pick a single reason to go back and change the past…she would do it just for him.

Terra…traitor.

She startled slightly as her tea cup clattered slightly against the saucer, trembling within the rage of her aura and she calmed herself, releasing the breath she hadn't realized she held. She felt dark tendrils of hatred slither back into the recesses of her mind, retreating as her morale stepped back into authority. The young woman felt a touch of shame nudge her, warming her face slightly. How could she think that about the girl who'd killed Slade? Who sacrificed herself for them? Why couldn't she forgive her even after all this time?

But she already knew why, she'd had this conversation before. As long as she could feel that resonating sorrow, that echoing, secret pain behind the eyes of their youngest comrade…what kind of Titan would she be if she so easily forgave it? With a sigh the girl dismissed thoughts of Terra. She wouldn't let her instincts go ignored this time and turn Red X into another Terra.

Raven ran a delicate finger along the lip of her cup, frowning into her greenish-brown reflection within the shifting liquid surface. She rubbed her fingers together, polishing and imaginary coin, feeling material not really there. She remembered through the misty pain of a head injury, taking a sinewy hand, shaking and hot with blood. She could still feel the thief's pulse racing under his skin as she pulled the glove free of his fingers, traced the feather-light marks.

Robin had hands like Red X…beaten, worn and calloused about the knuckles and tough, but Red X also had hands like Raven…slim, artisan. The scars betrayed his talent, scars only years and years of intense dedication can leave, so intimate a talent that it ingrains itself into your very finger tips. Raven touched the centre of her left palm with her fingers.

He played violin once. Well.

She could feel it murmuring through her skin, through her own finger tips and she let them fall into a familiar curl, aligned for an intricate chord. Her other hand wanted to feel a bow between her fingers, but they hadn't touched Red X, skin to skin, person to person. She let her hand hover above the table, watching with a cool interest as her finger formed invisible notes, following an inaudible metronome. Her breathing slowed, her heart aligning itself with the rhythm of the sound she'd never heard, letting her own thoughts slip slowly into a new sheath, a different mind.

She sucked a sharp breath through her teeth, biting her lip at the sudden shift; her body tingling as alien memories welled up, stolen from a clandestine touch…they exploded through her, flying past in snap-shots like shrapnel through her brain flashing out like a slideshow. Random shards of knowledge piercing her consciousness and blooming into recognizable words, running through her mind.

_The gutted innards of a car laid out across a garage floor. She knew the name of each one._

_Hundreds of violated vaults, safes, checking account numbers, social security information, the sleeping habits of Dobermans._

_A red-headed girl-child in pleated skirts._

_Circusrunaway._

_The sound of violin. Her favorite chords. _

_A beautiful blonde woman, middle-aged, but fierce. "Never make the first move! You almost make the second, third, fourth…"_

_She knew how to make a mean eggroll and teriyaki dish. _

_Socio and Espia._

_She liked the smell of cinnamon._

_A horrific Halloween mask, sliced black and burnt orange down the centre, snowflakes melting against the metal. "If I'm too much for you only say the word and I'll stop, X. Simply swear yourself to me and it will stop." _

_She, Red X, didn't romanticize anything. _

Several coffee machines exploded, rocketing potential de-café lattes across the room and spraying the occupancy with the sweet smelling hot-drink. People screamed and dove on their laptops to shield them from the flying beverage, others gaping at the dark hot splatter across their shirts and jeans, and – if you happened to be the teenager in the trendy clothes seated at the computer behind Raven – merely glancing at the chaos and grinning. But the young vigilante had no thought for coffee catastrophe; she could only see that horrible last image.

She stood up swiftly, knocking her chair over and rushing out the door without so much as an apology to the shell-shocked waitress. The teen at behind her glanced up from his computer, sliding his glasses slightly down the bridge of a slim nose. Raven didn't see him; her mind had fallen into a spinning whirlpool of thoughts, whipping themselves into a dangerous frenzy in her skull. The broken images stolen from a thief's mind ebbed away, slipping out of her brain like a tide, already she could barely recall their contents.

But not that last image. She could see it clearly still behind her eyes, burned there. She felt her hands coiling and uncoiling on themselves. Electric fear coursed through her blood stream like a shot of adrenaline, making her entire body tighten with anticipation. No. No! This was exactly the wrong thing! Exactly wrong. All wrong. She couldn't know this. Not now! Not now of all times without Cyborg to talk sense into Robin, without someone he wasn't furious with to keep him from snapping. _No_!

"Slade is dead," she whispered. "He has to be."

**Author's Note: **_Forgive me my delays, forgive my the boring chapter and oh my gosh, I'm so freaking sorry. This is such a very dismally poor chapter, but I can't think of a way to make it any more interesting. Gah! Fillers make me angry! I want action and violence and wanton killing of plot-bunnies, but thatmakes for an even poorer story still. _

**Cheezit: **_At least you're not dead?_

**Cloud8.9:** _At least you're not ugly? Oh wait..._

**Me: **unleashes wrath


	13. Jigsaw Puzzle

**Jigsaw Puzzle**

**Reply Fr: **CircusRunaway

**To:** Bandit13

What was the name of the circus? 

_-CircusRunaway_

Bannon contemplated the words quietly, frowning at them. He sighed, plucking his hot cocoa from the counter and downing a healthy gulp, burning his tongue mildly. He pondered a moment whether or not he should reply right away or just pretend he hadn't opened it. It would seem silly at this point to delay, having gone out of his way for the last couple months just to talk to this guy every other night. Just _not_ replying seemed almost taboo now, like he was breaking some kind of deeply ingrained rule of on-line chat…or something.

So there he had it.

The teenager poked a couple keys experimentally, as if they might form coherent words of their own accord, but no such luck. With a sigh he tucked his arms around his middle and sat back, closing his eyes and slumping tiredly in his seat. This is just retarded, he decided quietly, gazing with lidded eyes out the clean café window. He wasn't thinking about CircusRunaway anymore as he thought this. Frankly, he wasn't sure he remembered. It had been along time ago. He was rather pondering how he planned to one-up Blockbuster when the man so obviously wasn't one to be upped a second time.

If Blockbuster decided to hold a grudge Ban had the sneaking suspicion that rather than find him and beat his face in like every other normal criminal, that BB wanted to erase him completely. Red X was a fairly infamous name around Jump City and a thorn in the side of almost every other criminal to date. Bannon hadn't much thought about it but there was hardly a criminal in Jump that went without harassment. X had an annoying habit of bothering everyone; other criminals were not immune.

So to frame Red X and get him to tank out would say something about Blockbuster. Bannon leaned back in his chair and peered curiously at the back of Raven's lavender head. Did she really not know it was him? He took another ponderous sip of his cocoa. Then again getting close to the Titans without their knowledge was something of a hobby for the young mechanic, never mind Cyborg had remained mysteriously absent for the last couple fights…How long did that errand in Steel City last?

Anyway, Blockbuster…Ban may have underestimated the old man once, but he certainly wasn't in the mood to do so again and he similarly had no inclination to play the frightened mouse. He had Espia, he knew Blockbuster was the one who framed him, and he knew that the crime lord had the sister disk, Socio and therefore a bargaining chip. But he still could not shake the feeling that he was fumbling into a trap of some kind. He couldn't even logically explain _why_ as that didn't make any sense at all, but he couldn't shake the gut instinct telling him to be wary. For all he knew he'd played perfectly into BB's devious plot to rule the world.

Or something…

Several coffee machines suddenly exploded and Bannon jerked, startled as Raven jumped up, chair falling to the floor with a clattered. He blinked admirably about at the chaos. Raven turned quickly for the door, sweeping quickly out of the small café like she couldn't get out quickly enough. He caught the receding side-angle of her face, stack white, eyes wide with uncharacteristic…fear? He peered curiously after her, standing up in her seat briefly to watch her. The pale sorceress pulled her cowl over her head and jumped quickly into the air, wobbling a moment as if dizzy before regaining composure and vanishing overhead.

Odd…Bannon sat back, rubbing his aching side absentmindedly. He'd been so concerned that she'd seen his hand again last night, might recognize the violin scars, traced himself somehow, but his anxieties ebbed slightly after that display. She seemed, if anything, too distracted to present much of a problem. He sipped another mouthful of hot chocolate, typing a one handed message back to CircusRunaway. The Titans were having domestic problems, he supposed.

**Reply Fr: **Bandit13 CircusRunaway HomelessClown 

_The name of the circus? That was a hellava long time ago, jerk. I could probably be feeding you bad information here but, I remember it was this big time traveling gig visiting Gotham. I snuck out to see it. Haley's Circus. The posters were ugly, but I wanted to go anyway, even though clowns freak the heck out of me. But then the trapeze act went south or something, bad cables. Both of the acrobats died. They might have run a newspaper story. Why do you ask?_

_- Bandit13_

He paused, studying his reply carefully. Did he want to tell this guy he was from Gotham? Did it matter? He supposed it didn't and sent the e-mail, checking his box briefly for any other suspicious messages and logged out. He finished off what remained in the neat paper cup and tossed it in the trash. In the end it all came down to his innocence and what it would take to prove it to those hopped up vigilantes. For all his stealing, sleuthing and battle wounds he'd yet to find anything tangible, just a scrap to prove he wasn't the murderer.

He seethed quietly, his wounded pride kneading hot claws deep in the recesses of his chest and he felt his hand coiling. The amber-eyed teen stared spitefully at the computer in front of him. The old man would regret that he ever tried to get even with Red X. He smirked to himself, already feeling five times better. He already made up his mind. Blockbuster was in for one hell of a ride and if his luck held, he could even put his plan into motion this evening. After all, annoying people was his element.

He wasn't afraid. How could he be frightened of a mere mortal felon? He was one of greatest cat-burglars in Jump City and just to prove it, he was going to steal back his reputation, strip Blockbuster of whatever power he thought he had over him and prove once and for all that he was on a side all his own. God-complex or not, BB was only human and that didn't scare Red X. He was startled just how little anxiety he felt over this, he'd expected a bit more angst on his part, what with getting framed, beaten within and inch of his life and stalked around the city.

But than again getting chased by the Titans wasn't so out of the ordinary for Red X. Raven's almost-but-not-quite death blow had shaken him a bit (he didn't like it when heroes started playing too seriously, took all the fun out of everything) but Blockbuster didn't concern him. Compared to Slade…Blockbuster was nothing.

He rubbed his aching ribs ruefully. Making a reckless move on the criminal would probably be likened to shooting himself in the foot and tightrope walking: Stupid with a very high percentage of impending death. He needed to do something freaking brilliant, to do something to out wit Blockbuster and prove to all of Jump City's underworld that Red X didn't flinch in the face of _any_ criminal. He stood up, pushing back from the desk and scooping his backpack onto his shoulder, yawning again and eager to get to bed before doing anything else today. He'd become a nocturnal creature. He didn't appreciate being up at such ungodly hours.

He reached into a back pocket – not his own – as he meandered his way to the door and pulled a new cell phones from the pouch. Whistling he excused himself from the café and began walking down the sunny street, enjoying the bright reflective shimmer cast across the city skyscrapers. In the light of day he couldn't remember laying, bleeding and panting and in dark, stitching his own gushing wound and praying he wasn't too far gone. He had a short-term memory like that.

Carefully spacing his steps to avoid all the cracks in the sidewalk, Bannon flipped the cell open and neatly dialed 111-343-4343 with his thumb. The crowds around him got thick and noisy as he passed into the downtown arteries of the thunderous metropolis. Just as he reached a crosswalk the dial tone ended and a familiar, emotionless voice buzzed across the line.

"What is it, Red X?"

He cheered immediately at the sound of her voice. Oddly, for such a Gloomy-Gus she managed to make him feel ridiculously happy today. He moved quickly through the crowd, tucking the phone under his ear as he greeted his friend. "Wren! Love! How are you? Still stunning your electronic pals with your dazzling wit and good-humor?"

Her reply was as sour as a computerized voice can manage. "I see your humor has not suffered any damage. What is the purpose of your call? You said you would not bother me for some time."

"It's _been_ some time…" he said winningly.

"What is it?"

He reluctantly let the jokes go; knowing Wren would be one to get annoyed if he stretched his luck. She didn't like him calling her on their secret hot-line. Connected at all times to the sounds of radio and satellite signals throughout the city she could pick out that specific number from the masses and intercept the invalid signal. Thus, a convenient – but seldom used – connection that he was lucky to have.

"I have a favor to ask," he confessed, shouldering his way past a solid group of teenagers in clown make-up and street-clothes. "I wondered if you could connect me with the phone-lines in the old toy factory. You'll hear a bunch of electronic activity in there. I want you to patch me through so I can have a word with someone."

A pause…then:

"You wish to contact Blockbuster. The criminal? That is the man who seeks to kill you?"

He chuckled, less than concerned about himself than her piece of mind. "Yeah. That's his nasty voice you've been hearing over the radio frequencies. Not so untraceable when you know who to look for is he?"

"And you wish to speak with him?" There was another pause. "Are you certain this is wise?"

Bannon decided this was the Wren equivalent of 'Have you lost you ever-loving mind!' He paused beside a wide side-alley where a group of teenagers had laid out a cardboard box on the cement beside an old-school stereo. They had hypnotic techno playing while a skinny blond girl moon-walked. He amused himself dancing down the street while he thought of a proper reply. He drew many bewildered stares, but had his eyes closed and didn't notice.

"Wren, I promise I know what I'm doing here. Really. All you've gotta do is connect me and maybe distort my voice a bit? Please? I'll seriously leave you alone this time. Really."

A beat. "Alright, then."

"Fo' real? I thought you were gonna make a bigger fuss than that!"

"X…"

"Just kidding. Go on."

There was a momentary crackle of lines being crosses and the beeping tell-tale sign of satellites beaming things were they were not originally meant to go, but he ignored it. Finally there came a distant ringing and a click as the phone was answered. Bannon felt his body thrill, skin tingling with pent up adrenaline and he shivered. He sensed the man on the other end had his ear to the phone, waiting for him to speak first, probably already sensing something was out of whack.

"Hey, BB! That you?" he began brightly. "How's it going? Good I hope."

"Red X, is it?" Blockbuster said mildly. His voice had all the charm of gravel in a wood-chucker. A low and cavernous tone painted over with ill-bred malice. "Oh dear, it seems you're going one step further aren't you? Brave boy." Bannon experienced a momentary flare of temper at the superior tone interwoven through his fine words. It struck an infinitesimal chord somewhere in the back of his mind and rang through his head like a ripples from a tuning fork.

"Nah. I'm not brave, just an opportunist," he quipped. "Having a trump card makes you bold, yu' know. Kinda silly right? But what do I know, I'm sure a bold guy like you wins poker all the time, right?"

There came a terse pause. "Do you know why I haven't killed you yet?" Blockbuster asked him finally, carefully. As if questioning a small child or trauma victim who might, at any moment, collapse into a dithering mass of idiocy. Or maybe that was his imagination running away with him. Nevertheless, he shrugged to himself and coughed out a polite-but-not-so-polite answer.

"You can't catch me? No one can?"

"It's because I want you to recognize something," Blockbuster continued, ignoring the interruption. "That you are a criminal, a petty criminal in this city that belongs to me."

Bannon blinked. "This city doesn't belong to you," he said matter-factly, almost surprised by his own assurance.

"Pardon?"

"This city doesn't belong to you. Do what you want, this city won't ever belong to you," Bannon said icily, colder inside than he could have imagined possible. "You can scratch and claw and struggle, but you'll never scare me. You won't out last the Titans and you'll never be anything but second, probably third best to the criminals that have already held this city. Face it, you're going to be in the shadow of a dead man for your entire criminal career."

A taunt silence.

"You know I'm right," Bannon murmured. "You have to know who I'm talking about..."

"If you would like to prove who is truly 'second best' why don't you meet me in the park tonight. One AM."

The thief chuckled. "Why so you and your gang of thugs can shoot at me?"

"Meet me. Only me."

The line went dead…and Wren immediately stepped in. Her voice over the phone sounded frigid, almost angry but Bannon blamed this on the bad connection. "This is a foolish and dangerous idea," she stated obviously, convinced that Ban simply could not see the correlation between meeting Blockbuster and an untimely demise. The teenager sighed, toying with slowly reddening tip of darkly dyed hair. He thought it was cute how stupid she thought he was.

"I'm not going," he said with a short laugh.

"Then why did you make him so angry? He will only seek to terminate you all the more. The probability of your death is much higher now. You only have a –,"

"La la la! I don't want to hear statistics," Bannon broke in loudly, dancing slightly. He stopped in the middle of the sidewalk and cooed soothingly into the mouthpiece. "Don't worry. This is all part of my brilliant plan. I promise." Then with that he snapped the little phone closed and pitched it hard as he could into high traffic. He whistled cheerfully, turning away from the resulting fender bender and strolled down the street.

-heist-

**Author's Note: **_Ahh, nothing like a plot point making its mark in the middle of a story. Hurrah! I'm getting closer and ever closer to making some kind of point to this tale. Maybe even a chapter where something INTERESTING happens. No! Really I promise! I'd be going faster if not for my new preoccupation with It's almost as fun as fanfiction. I've even setup a lovely little account there for original works. Same penname._

**Cheezit: **_What she's trying to say is this is a shameless insert. Go check it out._

**Cloud8.9: **_How does she have time to live with all the crap she's writing? It's not human I tell you!_

**Me: **_Ah, get bent, all of you._


	14. A' For Effort

'A' For Effort

Red X had, in the short history of his love-life, been notorious for standing up the most unlikely dates in favor of – let's say – a sandwich at home, or a toaster that needed to get fixed. The few friends he did claim to have all agreed he was off his friggin' rocker. Why would he turn tail and run when he had beautiful, personal-trainer crafted rich girls courting him shamelessly? Who cares what kind of dark ulterior motives she's got up her dress, enjoy the view at least? But X, rather Bannon, couldn't get up the cajones to sit across the table from such girls for more than twenty minutes, lest he stopped listening to their conversation and start paying careful attention to the thirty-thousand dollar diamond anklet she was wearing.

After a while it became something of a game. Every rich daddy's girl was encouraged to somehow get in good graces with the junior Mr. Sasaki, therefore getting _her_ father in good graces with _his_ father, so on and so forth. Dodging their advances had become something of a rude art that he liked to perfect daily at required dinner parties and public venues. He was an expert, a damn professor of advanced romance obliteration, the king of broken dinner-dates and the only male teenager in his social circle not chasing diamond encrusted booty. This instinct about ducking out of dates followed him into the streets, unfortunately, where he ruined a couple really good relationships in the course of his new life. Red X could not, even if he wanted to, meet for a prearranged appointment unless you promised there would be free money and doughnuts.

Since Blockbuster wasn't probably going to give him money _or_ doughnuts, Red X wasn't going to show up.

The thief had, instead, gone out and bought a broken battery powered toaster oven, a box of doughnuts and a sandwich at the local deli. Then he went home and ate his sandwich and fixed the toaster oven while Shi-Shi sat on the cabinets overhead and eyed him beadily. The cat tended to find his scheming things reprehensible somehow and would not leave him alone for a moment of peace. He toasted a bagel experimentally while the cat glared at him, tail lashing disapprovingly back and forth as he pulled the old toy factory construction blue prints, laying them over with the new ones from the recent renovation of said factory. He chewed his pencil, glancing at his watch while the smell of toasted bagel drifted through the air.

"This _is_ a good idea," he told his cat plainly.

"Reow," Shi-Shi said unappreciatively.

"What do you know?" he muttered. The bagel popped out of toaster. He glanced at his watch. "Seven minutes and forty-five seconds. This toaster sucks." Bannon crammed the bagel in his mouth and proceeded to dial the phone. He waited a moment while it connected, humming to himself and swinging his foot back and forth under the lip of the counter, chewing thoughtfully.

"Reow."

"You'll see in a second you dumb cat." He chewed and swallowed. "We can't be flashy all the time."

"Reow…"

-heist-

"Delivery for Commissioner Jones?"

Jones looked up from his paperwork, fuming, mustache bristling magnificently over his fifth cup of coffee. Those damn kids! He wasn't getting a wink of sleep over this ridiculous Red X case and the stack of villains and villainesses were piling up in the jail house like catching them was only just so much irritating work on the way to the top. Frankly, the man hadn't ever considered this Red X character much of an over all threat save to the bank accounts of the wealthy and well-to-do and no one liked the wealthy and well-to-do, him least of all. However, over the course of these last couple days – good grief, only days, days! – he had begun to slowly begrudge the burglar something almost like respect.

You couldn't really respect any man who ran around in a hopped up Halloween get-up, but you could at least be wary of one who killed a man, fought with Robin, then single-handedly jailed three criminals in the span of a single night. This spoke of a man who was probably insane and outwitting the entire city crome-force in the state of being insane. You have to get points for that, just a couple.

The botched robbery attempt the following night aside, this guy was shaping up to be one of single most irritating felons to date. What kind of criminal worked like this? A perfect record of barely provable high-profile crimes, professional, clean-cut and quiet then has a sudden explosion of public violence and twisted vigilantism? It made it look like the work of two completely different people from the commissioner's point of view, or at least a very extreme case of split personality. One the conscious thief, the other the ruthless murderer, clashing and crashing against one another, punching the other in the face in a blow for blow struggle for supremacy...

"Commissioner?" Jacklyn Tate, his new desk jockey, was glaring in at him. "The delivery boy is making me want to hurt things. Namely him. Sign for his damn package or I'll have to beat him down and get laid off the force." Tate looked peeved, but than again, she usually did. She'd just recently been put on probation for pistol-whipping a suspect in a cross-city chase that the Titan's couldn't be spared to worry about. While the Justice League Vigilante Protection Laws provided heavy lee-way for the official members of the JL, ye olde beat-cops were still subject to very harsh law-suits. Tate was one of those unfortunate and disgruntled mortals and for the last three weeks she'd been taking out on anyone who got within snarling distance of her.

Jones groaned, getting to his feet. "And what ever would we do without your glowing and sunny disposition around my paper work?"

"Milk will curdle at the sound of your screams if you call me sunny or glowing again."

Yeah. Disgruntled.

The man rotated his prickling shoulder as he pushed his way into the office bustle, street cops hauling pick-pockets and car-jackers into holding, citizens lining up to file complaints, shouting, chatting, and all the other cop-shop noise. Amid it all a nervous looking Latino kid was fidgeting with a large brown paper wrapped box and a plain white envelope. He straightened at the sight of the commissioner and stepped forward quickly, thrusting the package at him like a hot potato. The clipboard was piled on top for signing, preferably with speed.

"Hurry man, I gotta get outta here," he said, bouncing on the balls of his feet. "Your secretary is giving me this crazy look…"

"Tate, be nice!" he snapped, signing. "Who sent this?"

"I dunno, some guy." He snatched the clipboard back fast as humanly possible and took off.

"Charming," Tate growled, "Do they pay him in money or dope?"

Jones ignored her as he came back to the front desk, shaking the box and placing his ear against the side of it. He tossed the envelope at the woman. "Get that open for me will yu'? I'm trying to decide how paranoid I want to be about getting a mysterious box from unknown origins and under-aged civilians." He frowned, listening to the inside as he shook again. "That sounds familiar." He started untying the string. "Tate. What's the letter say?"

"Oh." She laughed and slung her boots up on the desk, brows flying up her forehead. "Oh, this is good. Hey, commissioner how often do we get felons who think canning their own is a kickin' past time?"

Jones froze. "What?"

"It's another Red X letter. This one's really to you though. Says 'Enjoy the doughnuts, fuzz-boy. They're a gift, but I'd really appreciate it if you'd stake out the park tonight, say, round one AM. If you do, I promise some one will show up. You should arrest them as they are the real deal scum-bag murderer and a psychotic big-time crime lord. His name's Blockbuster if he tries to cop out and if you keep an eye on him I promise to send in the evidence soon.' This kid is scream huh? 'PS: You can tell the Titans if you like, but Robin will pitch a hissy fit.'" Tate dropped the letter with a laugh. "Commissioner, how long are we gonna let this guy tug our chains? As it is, he's just throwing felon after felon at us when he's done beating the crap out of them for whatever pretty crime war they've got going."

"Isn't that the best kind?" he said, opening the box. The doughnuts were powdered, he wondered if that should worry him.

"Sir?"

"Tate." The older man kicked back on the desk. "You've gotta learn to lighten up a bit. If the thief wants to play hero, let him and if the Titans want to chase him, let them. I'm sure they'll sort it out amongst themselves and in the meantime criminals are behind bars right? When all is said and done and if the Titans don't mess up, then we'll just take care of the clean-up." He frowned, mulling over his impulsive philosophy. "Huh…well, look at it this way actually, we can't stop any of them either way so just play along. We don't wanna get mixed up in the weird cases anyhow."

"Right. We stick to murder and tax skippers." Tate folded her hands on the desk. "So this…Blockbuster. I've heard of him, but there's nothing we can touch him with. Red X is fooling himself if he thinks we're gonna pounce on this guy just because he gave us a not-so-anonymous tip."

"Hmm…" said Commissioner Jones, stroking his mustache.

Tate made an appalled face. "Don't do that. It's stupid looking."

"No doughnut for you," he said, jerking the box away from her. "I was thinking we should hand all this over to the Titans. Take him up on his advice."

"Sir? The Titans? I thought you hated them?"

"I do, but they get to do things like detain people on mere whim. And besides…" He chewed his doughnuts. "X and Robin deserve each other."

"You're not…a very nice guy, sir."

"I know."

-heist-

"How can that possibly be true?" Black rage. Fear.

"It's the truth." Nothing.

"What am I supposed to _believe_, Raven?" Desperation, doubt, fury.

"Me, Robin. You're supposed to believe _me_," Raven answered. There are black needles behind every icy word.

The Boy Wonder stopped short at that, sharply coming to a halt as he moved to pace the length of the carpeted hallway. The pallor of his bare skin beneath the mask had drained of all hue but the sickly pale color of paper and a slightly nauseous green. His gloved hands had snapped back into themselves, shrinking into frightened furious fists almost as fast as he recoiled from Raven's blunt declaration. He didn't turn around, refused to look at her as he stood rooted there; adhered to the carpeting.

Through out the entire conversation Raven hadn't so much as flinched, even at her own horror concerning what she'd seen. She was unmoved even when forced to admit that she couldn't prove it anymore than she could prove a thought crossing her mind. This didn't frighten her so much as the though of Robin not trusting her enough to take her word. She folded her arms over her breasts and thrust her shoulder back against the wall, listening intently to the thundering of her own heart against the back of her ribcage. In the back of her mind she felt darkness stirring restlessly, slithering like oil across her thoughts and coloring them dark.

Slade.

"What do you want, Robin?" snapped Raven finally as the silence betwixt the two Titan's lengthened uncomfortably. For a moment it was obvious Robin couldn't understand what she meant. She broke the splintering silence, tugging the pain of choice from Robin's hands. "What do you want? For me to pretend I didn't see anything so you can keep pretending Red X is the prime target here? If Slade is still alive then Red X was telling the truth all along. Even last Christmas and furthermore…Slade could be involved in this murder. Heck, while we're speculating here, he could be involved with this WAYNE Enterprises thing too. If he had beef with Red X before, maybe he still does. Maybe _he's_ the third party."

The line of Robin's spine down the back of his uniform remained absolutely rigid, fronds of wavering fear and indecision tickling the edges of her mind. He didn't seem capable of turning and facing her. She just gazed at the back of the Titan's neck, staring at the taunt lines of his arms locking up beneath his cape until they could take no more and like tension let out of a wire, his shoulders sagged and he let his head fall back finally. He stared up into the unlit ceiling.

"Raven…he was there."

"Who?" Now he'd wandered. Raven stood three feet away from him and four-thousand miles away from whatever enigmatic 'he' that Boy Wonder now referred to. Robin sighed and unclasped the cape, tossing it against the wall where it, with a light cough, hit the paneling and slithered to the ground. He beat his cape to the floor, already having dropped with his back against the opposite wall, head rammed up against it, knees at odd angles, arms draped without thought.

"The guy in the e-mail."

"Robin. Slade might still be alive. You have to focus –,"

"Just listen to me for a minute."

Raven fell silent. Robin ran his fingers through his hair, hunching over, face drooping toward the carpet, every lines of him emanating desperate anxiety. The broken pieces were dislodging all around her, all the fractured bits of their team falling apart and Raven had not even been to see Beast Boy or Starfire. She, maybe, was frightened to see what their reactions were.

"He was there that night," he repeated, his voice raw and scraped. If he opened his mouth Raven expected blood, bubbling up from the open internal wound, the one that never healed. He looked up at her and she didn't need to see his eyes to know absolute despair. "At Haley's circus. Raven…the guy I've been talking to for the past three months watched my parents die." A strangled laugh. "He was probably in the stands, probably right next to me, probably close enough to see. He was there and you know what else?"

Raven didn't know what else.

"Every time he writes me…he sounds more and more like Red X!" Robin bit his lip a breath…then burst out laughing. He keeled over laughing, laughing and nothing about anything struck her as even remotely funny. He clenched his fist against his mouth to calm himself, stifle the hilarity and spared her a cursory glance over his fingers. "And what's worse? What's _worse_? I think that maybe, Cyborg was right leaving. I mean, hell, I am a God-awful leader, look!" He waved a slightly shaky hand at nothing, gesturing at the ribbons of moonlight. "Look at this. Lousy hypocrite is what I am. Won't let him go after Blood, meanwhile I'm all wrapped up in Red X and Slade…"

The sorceress gave the boy a vaguely horrified look. "Robin…are you…okay?"

"Sure I am."

"Did you take something?"

He looked affronted, his old sharpness snapping back into his expression. "What? No. Jeez, Raven. No."

Weary hands rubbed his face, clearing sleepiness from his masked features. He looked more human this way, the rumple teenager with no cape, no shoes (he'd abandoned them somewhere with his gloves at his utility belt) or other semblance of heroicness about his person. Raven tried to see him without the mask, tried to imagine the eyes, the face as a whole. He made a strange photograph, this wiry, skinny boy in mask and bright colors with his knees drawn up sitting on the hallway floor, just taking up space, staring and confused. She sighed and joined him sitting down next to him and folding her legs.

"I'm sorry, Robin." They stared at the wall. "I'm sorry for all of it."

Somewhere down the halls Beast Boy snorted loudly and banged as he rolled into the wall. Starfire sneezed explosively –

"Do you think I'm wrong?"

– and they sat on the floor together.

"No. I don't. I might have before today, but now I don't," she replied evenly, lifting her brows. "You've been talking to Red X over the internet for three months. Good job, Mr. Ace Detective. I give you an A for effort."

Still patches of dark and quavering strips of light filled the hall. Raven felt something bump her. She glanced over. Robin's slight frame shook with silent laughter beside her, jerking with bursts of it and he buried his face in his hands. She studied them absently, the hands. Worn, scarred and calloused, but they really weren't much like Red's were they? Robin's hands were tougher; they had more edge, more strength if nothing else tangible. She though about the criminal and the hero, thief and Titan, X and Rob. Comparable, polarized, reflective – She stopped thinking because Robin started talking.

"Red X is still our objective," he commented, leaning back against the wall. Warm serenity pooled where she'd felt only chaos seconds before. "If anyone will know about Slade, it's him. So we stick to the plan."

Raven frowned, wary of that tone. "What plan?"

"The plan where I tell you guys how I've been tracking Red X myself using the Xynothium tracer Cyborg designed before he left." Raven felt like one slapped. In the back of her mind something leapt up, flinging a finger dramatically – 'so _that's_ how you did it, you clever bastard!' She managed not to say it aloud. Robin went on after she declined the chance to chew him out for his little treachery, knowing it was forgiven. "It can trace it in bursts, released energy. So when he strikes, we know where."

"You should get some sleep."

"But…"

"Trust me when I say Red won't be murdering anyone tonight. Just get some sleep."

"Alright. Night, Rae."

-heist-

**Author's Note: **Yeah okay, so I've not done anything for like months. Sue me. I got wrapped up in Kingdom Hearts and had amnesia about anything else. Then, like a sign from heaven, I was sitting and suddenly the episode 'X' started playing and I was struck by a thunderbolt – My Lord! I haven't written my Red X story in ages! I want Red X! Thus: renewed faith in my character. Yay. If you want to blame someone, blame my muse. She got off on Riku and Nobodies so I couldn't focus on Bannon, little slut.

**Cheezit: **You know I'm just a subconscious alter ego of yourself, right?

**Cloud8.9:** So secretly it's all your fault.

**Me:** Neh…Warning. There may be a revamp of this story, edit this thing and make it not so crap-like. But I'll give some warning. Until then, tootles!


End file.
